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Committer's Guide The FreeBSD Documentation Project $FreeBSD$ 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 The FreeBSD Documentation Project &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.cvsup; &tm-attrib.ibm; &tm-attrib.intel; &tm-attrib.sparc; &tm-attrib.general; This document provides information for the FreeBSD committer community. All new committers should read this document before they start, and existing committers are strongly encouraged to review it from time to time. Administrative Details Main Repository Host ncvs.FreeBSD.org Login Methods &man.ssh.1;, protocol 2 only Main CVSROOT ncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs (although also see ). Main &a.cvs; &a.peter; and &a.markm;, as well as &a.joe; for ports/ Mailing Lists &a.developers;, &a.committers; (Both of these are private lists; archives can be found in /home/mail/developers-archive and /home/mail/committers-archive on the FreeBSD.org cluster.) Core Team monthly reports /home/core/public/monthly-report on the FreeBSD.org cluster. Noteworthy CVS Tags RELENG_4 (4.X-STABLE), HEAD (-CURRENT) It is required that you use &man.ssh.1; or &man.telnet.1; with Kerberos 5 to connect to the project hosts. For &man.ssh.1; only protocol 2 is allowed. These are generally more secure than plain &man.telnet.1; or &man.rlogin.1; since credential negotiation will always be encrypted. All traffic is encrypted by default with &man.ssh.1;. With utilities like &man.ssh-agent.1; and &man.scp.1; also available, &man.ssh.1; is also far more convenient. If you do not know anything about &man.ssh.1;, please see . Commit Bit Types The FreeBSD CVS repository has a number of components which, when combined, support the basic operating system source, documentation, third party application ports infrastructure, and various maintained utilities. When FreeBSD commit bits are allocated, the areas of the tree where the bit may be used are specified. Generally, the areas associated with a bit reflect who authorized the allocation of the commit bit. Additional areas of authority may be added at a later date: when this occurs, the committer should follow normal commit bit allocation procedures for that area of the tree, seeking approval from the appropriate entity and possibly getting a mentor for that area for some period of time. Committer Type Responsible Tree Components src core@ src/, doc/ subject to appropriate review doc doceng@ doc/, www/, src/ documentation ports portmgr@ ports/ Commit bits allocated prior to the development of the notion of areas of authority may be appropriate for use in many parts of the tree. However, common sense dictates that a committer who has not previously worked in an area of the tree seek review prior to committing, seek approval from the appropriate responsible party, and/or work with a mentor. Since the rules regarding code maintenance differ by area of the tree, this is as much for the benefit of the committer working in an area of less familiarity as it is for others working on the tree. Committers are encouraged to seek review for their work as part of the normal development process, regardless of the area of the tree where the work is occurring. CVS Operations It is assumed that you are already familiar with the basic operation of CVS. The &a.cvs; are the owners of the CVS repository and are responsible for direct modification of it for the purposes of cleanup or fixing some grievous abuse of CVS by a committer. Should you cause some repository accident, say a bad cvs import or cvs tag operation, mail the &a.cvs; (or call one of them) and report the problem to one of them. The only ones able to directly fiddle the repository bits on the repository hosts are the repomeisters. To enforce this, there are no login shells available on the repository machines, except to the repomeisters. The CVS tree is currently split into four distinct repositories, namely doc, ports, projects and src. These are combined under a single CVSROOT when distributed via CVSup for the convenience of our users. Note that the www module containing sources for the FreeBSD website is contained within the doc repository. The CVS repositories are hosted on the repository machines. Currently, each of the repositories above reside on the same physical machine, ncvs.FreeBSD.org, but to allow for the possibility of placing each on a separate machine in the future, there is a separate hostname for each that committers should use. Additionally, each repository is stored in a separate directory. The following table summarizes the situation. &os; CVS Repositories, Hosts and Directories Repository Host Directory doc dcvs.FreeBSD.org /home/dcvs ports pcvs.FreeBSD.org /home/pcvs projects projcvs.FreeBSD.org /home/projcvs src ncvs.FreeBSD.org /home/ncvs
CVS operations are done remotely by setting the CVSROOT environment variable to the appropriate host and top-level directory (for example, ncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs), the CVS_RSH variable to ssh, and then doing the appropriate check-out/check-in operations. Many committers define aliases which expand to the correct cvs invocation for the appropriate repository. For example, a &man.tcsh.1; user may add the following to their .cshrc for this purpose: alias dcvs env CVS_RSH=ssh cvs -d user@dcvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/dcvs alias pcvs env CVS_RSH=ssh cvs -d user@pcvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/pcvs alias projcvs env CVS_RSH=ssh cvs -d user@projcvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/projcvs alias scvs env CVS_RSH=ssh cvs -d user@ncvs.FreeBSD.org:/home/ncvs This way they can do all CVS operations locally and use Xcvs commit for committing to the official CVS tree. If you wish to add something which is wholly new (like contrib-ified sources, etc), cvs import should be used. Refer to the &man.cvs.1; manual page for usage. Please do not use cvs checkout or update with the official repository machine set as the CVS Root for keeping your source tree up to date. Remote CVS is not optimized for network distribution and requires a big work/administrative overhead on the server side. Please use our advanced cvsup distribution method for obtaining the repository bits, and only do the actual commit operation on the repository host. We provide an extensive cvsup replication network for this purpose, as well as give access to cvsup-master if you really need to stay current to the latest changes. cvsup-master has got the horsepower to deal with this, the repository master server does not. &a.kuriyama; is in charge of cvsup-master. If you need to use CVS add and delete operations in a manner that is effectively a &man.mv.1; operation, then a repository copy is in order rather than using CVS add and delete. In a repository copy, a CVS Meister will copy the file(s) to their new name and/or location and let you know when it is done. The purpose of a repository copy is to preserve file change history, or logs. We in the FreeBSD Project greatly value the change history that CVS gives to the project. CVS reference information, tutorials, and FAQs can be found at: . The information in Karl Fogel's chapters from Open Source Development with CVS is also very useful. &a.des; also supplied the following mini primer for CVS. Check out a module with the co or checkout command. &prompt.user; cvs checkout shazam This checks out a copy of the shazam module. If there is no shazam module in the modules file, it looks for a top-level directory named shazam instead. Useful <command>cvs checkout</command> options Do not create empty directories Check out a single level, no subdirectories Check out revision, branch or tag rev Check out the sources as they were on date date
Practical FreeBSD examples: Check out the miscfs module, which corresponds to src/sys/miscfs: &prompt.user; cvs co miscfs You now have a directory named miscfs with subdirectories CVS, deadfs, devfs, and so on. One of these (linprocfs) is empty. Check out the same files, but with full path: &prompt.user; cvs co src/sys/miscfs You now have a directory named src, with subdirectories CVS and sys. The src/sys directory has subdirectories CVS and miscfs, etc. Check out the same files, but prunes empty directories: &prompt.user; cvs co -P miscfs You now have a directory named miscfs with subdirectories CVS, deadfs, devfs... but note that there is no linprocfs subdirectory, because there are no files in it. Check out the directory miscfs, but none of the subdirectories: &prompt.user; cvs co -l miscfs You now have a directory named miscfs with just one subdirectory named CVS. Check out the miscfs module as it is in the 4.X branch: &prompt.user; cvs co -rRELENG_4 miscfs You can modify the sources and commit along this branch. Check out the miscfs module as it was in 3.4-RELEASE. &prompt.user; cvs co -rRELENG_3_4_0_RELEASE miscfs You will not be able to commit modifications, since RELENG_3_4_0_RELEASE is a point in time, not a branch. Check out the miscfs module as it was on Jan 15 2000. &prompt.user; cvs co -D'01/15/2000' miscfs You will not be able to commit modifications. Check out the miscfs module as it was one week ago. &prompt.user; cvs co -D'last week' miscfs You will not be able to commit modifications. Note that cvs stores metadata in subdirectories named CVS. Arguments to and are sticky, which means cvs will remember them later, e.g. when you do a cvs update. Check the status of checked-out files with the status command. &prompt.user; cvs status shazam This displays the status of the file shazam or of every file in the shazam directory. For every file, the status is given as one of: Up-to-date File is up-to-date and unmodified. Needs Patch File is unmodified, but there is a newer revision in the repository. Locally Modified File is up-to-date, but modified. Needs Merge File is modified, and there is a newer revision in the repository. File had conflicts on merge There were conflicts the last time this file was updated, and they have not been resolved yet. You will also see the local revision and date, the revision number of the newest applicable version (newest applicable because if you have a sticky date, tag or branch, it may not be the actual newest revision), and any sticky tags, dates or options. Once you have checked something out, you can update it with the update command. &prompt.user; cvs update shazam This updates the file shazam or the contents of the shazam directory to the latest version along the branch you checked out. If you checked out a point in time, does nothing unless the tags have moved in the repository or some other weird stuff is going on. Useful options, in addition to those listed above for checkout: Check out any additional missing directories. Update to head of main branch. More magic (see below). If you checked out a module with or , running cvs update with a different or argument or with will select a new branch, revision or date. The option clears all sticky tags, dates or revisions whereas and set new ones. Theoretically, specifying HEAD as the argument to will give you the same result as , but that is just theory. The option is useful if: somebody has added subdirectories to the module you have checked out after you checked it out. you checked out with , and later change your mind and want to check out the subdirectories as well. you deleted some subdirectories and want to check them all back out. Watch the output of the cvs update with care. The letter in front of each filename indicates what was done with it: U The file was updated without trouble. P The file was updated without trouble (you will only see this when working against a remote repository). M The file had been modified, and was merged without conflicts. C The file had been modified, and was merged with conflicts. Merging is what happens if you check out a copy of some source code, modify it, then someone else commits a change, and you run cvs update. CVS notices that you have made local changes, and tries to merge your changes with the changes between the version you originally checked out and the one you updated to. If the changes are to separate portions of the file, it will almost always work fine (though the result might not be syntactically or semantically correct). CVS will print an M in front of every locally modified file even if there is no newer version in the repository, so cvs update is handy for getting a summary of what you have changed locally. If you get a C, then your changes conflicted with the changes in the repository (the changes were to the same lines, or neighboring lines, or you changed the local file so much that cvs can not figure out how to apply the repository's changes). You will have to go through the file manually and resolve the conflicts; they will be marked with rows of <, = and > signs. For every conflict, there will be a marker line with seven < signs and the name of the file, followed by a chunk of what your local file contained, followed by a separator line with seven = signs, followed by the corresponding chunk in the repository version, followed by a marker line with seven > signs and the revision number you updated to. The option is slightly voodoo. It updates the local file to the specified revision as if you used , but it does not change the recorded revision number or branch of the local file. It is not really useful except when used twice, in which case it will merge the changes between the two specified versions into the working copy. For instance, say you commit a change to shazam/shazam.c in &os.current; and later want to MFC it. The change you want to MFC was revision 1.15: Check out the &os.stable; version of the shazam module: &prompt.user; cvs co -rRELENG_4 shazam Apply the changes between rev 1.14 and 1.15: &prompt.user; cvs update -j1.14 -j1.15 shazam/shazam.c You will almost certainly get a conflict because - of the $Id: article.sgml,v 1.190 2004-04-20 18:43:19 ceri Exp $ (or in FreeBSD's case, + of the $Id: article.sgml,v 1.191 2004-05-11 13:29:46 den Exp $ (or in FreeBSD's case, $FreeBSD$) lines, so you will have to edit the file to resolve the conflict - (remove the marker lines and the second $Id: article.sgml,v 1.190 2004-04-20 18:43:19 ceri Exp $ line, - leaving the original $Id: article.sgml,v 1.190 2004-04-20 18:43:19 ceri Exp $ line intact). + (remove the marker lines and the second $Id: article.sgml,v 1.191 2004-05-11 13:29:46 den Exp $ line, + leaving the original $Id: article.sgml,v 1.191 2004-05-11 13:29:46 den Exp $ line intact). View differences between the local version and the repository version with the diff command. &prompt.user; cvs diff shazam shows you every modification you have made to the shazam file or module. Useful <command>cvs diff</command> options Uses the unified diff format. Uses the context diff format. Shows missing or added files.
You always want to use , since unified diffs are much easier to read than almost any other diff format (in some circumstances, context diffs generated with the option may be better, but they are much bulkier). A unified diff consists of a series of hunks. Each hunk begins with a line that starts with two @ signs and specifies where in the file the differences are and how many lines they span. This is followed by a number of lines; some (preceded by a blank) are context; some (preceded by a - sign) are outtakes and some (preceded by a +) are additions. You can also diff against a different version than the one you checked out by specifying a version with or as in checkout or update, or even view the diffs between two arbitrary versions (without regard for what you have locally) by specifying two versions with or . View log entries with the log command. &prompt.user; cvs log shazam If shazam is a file, this will print a header with information about this file, such as where in the repository this file is stored, which revision is the HEAD for this file, what branches this file is in, and any tags that are valid for this file. Then, for each revision of this file, a log message is printed. This includes the date and time of the commit, who did the commit, how many lines were added and/or deleted, and finally the log message that the committer who did the change wrote. If shazam is a directory, then the log information described above is printed for each file in the directory in turn. Unless you give the to log, the log for all subdirectories of shazam is printed too, in a recursive manner. Use the log command to view the history of one or more files, as it is stored in the CVS repository. You can even use it to view the log message of a specific revision, if you add the to the log command: &prompt.user; cvs log -r1.2 shazam This will print only the log message for revision 1.2 of file shazam if it is a file, or the log message for revision 1.2 of each file under shazam if it is a directory. See who did what with the annotate command. This command shows you each line of the specified file or files, along with which user most recently changed that line. &prompt.user; cvs annotate shazam Add new files with the add command. Create the file, cvs add it, then cvs commit it. Similarly, you can add new directories by creating them and then cvs adding them. Note that you do not need to commit directories. Remove obsolete files with the remove command. Remove the file, then cvs rm it, then cvs commit it. Commit with the commit or checkin command. Useful <command>cvs commit</command> options Force a commit of an unmodified file. Specify a commit message on the command line rather than invoking an editor.
Use the option if you realize that you left out important information from the commit message. Good commit messages are important. They tell others why you did the changes you did, not just right here and now, but months or years from now when someone wonders why some seemingly illogical or inefficient piece of code snuck into your source file. It is also an invaluable aid to deciding which changes to MFC and which not to MFC. Commit messages should be clear, concise and provide a reasonable summary to give an indication of what was changed and why. Commit messages should provide enough information to enable a third party to decide if the change is relevant to them and if they need to read the change itself. Avoid committing several unrelated changes in one go. It makes merging difficult, and also makes it harder to determine which change is the culprit if a bug crops up. Avoid committing style or whitespace fixes and functionality fixes in one go. It makes merging difficult, and also makes it harder to understand just what functional changes were made. In the case of documentation files, it can make the job of the translation teams more complicated, as it becomes difficult for them to determine exactly what content changes need to be translated. Avoid committing changes to multiple files in one go with a generic, vague message. Instead, commit each file (or small, related groups of files) with tailored commit messages. Before committing, always: verify which branch you are committing to, using cvs status. review your diffs, using cvs diff Also, ALWAYS specify which files to commit explicitly on the command line, so you do not accidentally commit other files than the ones you intended - cvs commit without any arguments will commit every modification in your current working directory and every subdirectory. Additional tips and tricks: You can place commonly used options in your ~/.cvsrc, like this: cvs -z3 diff -Nu update -Pd checkout -P This example says: always use compression level 3 when talking to a remote server. This is a life-saver when working over a slow connection. always use the (show added or removed files) and (unified diff format) options to &man.diff.1;. always use the (prune empty directories) and (check out new directories) options when updating. always use the (prune empty directories) option when checking out. Use Eivind Eklund's cdiff script to view unidiffs. It is a wrapper for &man.less.1; that adds ANSI color codes to make hunk headers, outtakes and additions stand out; context and garbage are unmodified. It also expands tabs properly (tabs often look wrong in diffs because of the extra character in front of each line). Simply use it instead of &man.more.1; or &man.less.1;: &prompt.user; cvs diff -Nu shazam | cdiff Alternatively some editors like &man.vim.1; (editors/vim5) have color support and when used as a pager with color syntax highlighting switched on will highlight many types of file, including diffs, patches, and CVS/RCS logs. &prompt.user; echo "syn on" >> ~/.vimrc &prompt.user; cvs diff -Nu shazam | vim - &prompt.user; cvs log shazam | vim - CVS is old, arcane, crufty and buggy, and sometimes exhibits non-deterministic behavior which some claim as proof that it is actually merely the Newtonian manifestation of a sentient transdimensional entity. It is not humanly possible to know its every quirk inside out, so do not be afraid to ask the resident AI (&a.cvs;) for help. Do not leave the cvs commit command in commit message editing mode for too long (more than 2–3 minutes). It locks the directory you are working with and will prevent other developers from committing into the same directory. If you have to type a long commit message, type it before executing cvs commit, and insert it into the commit message. Conventions and Traditions As a new committer there are a number of things you should do first. Add your author entity to doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/share/sgml/authors.ent; this should be done first since an omission of this commit will cause the next commits to break the doc/ build. This is a relatively easy task, but remains a good first test of your CVS skills. Add yourself to the Developers section of the Contributors List and remove yourself from the Additional Contributors section. Add an entry for yourself to www/en/news/news.xml. Look for the other entries that look like A new committer and follow the format. You should add your PGP or GnuPG key to doc/share/pgpkeys (and if you do not have a key, you should create one). Do not forget to commit the updated doc/share/pgpkeys/pgpkeys.ent. &a.des; has written a shell script to make this extremely simple. See the README file for more information. It is important to have an up-to-date PGP/GnuPG key in the Handbook, since the key may be required for positive identification of a committer, e.g. by the &a.admins; for account recovery. Some people add an entry for themselves to ports/astro/xearth/files/freebsd.committers.markers. Some people add an entry for themselves to src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.freebsd. Introduce yourself to the other committers, otherwise no one will have any idea who you are or what you are working on. You do not have to write a comprehensive biography, just write a paragraph or two about who you are and what you plan to be working on as a committer in FreeBSD. Email this to the &a.developers; and you will be on your way! Log into hub.FreeBSD.org and create a /var/forward/user (where user is your username) file containing the e-mail address where you want mail addressed to yourusername@FreeBSD.org to be forwarded. This includes all of the commit messages as well as any other mail addressed to the &a.committers; and the &a.developers;. Really large mailboxes which have taken up permanent residence on hub often get accidentally truncated without warning, so forward it or read it and you will not lose it. Due to the severe load dealing with SPAM places on the central mail servers that do the mailing list processing the front-end server does do some basic checks and will drop some messages based on these checks. At the moment proper DNS information for the connecting host is the only check in place but that may change. Some people blame these checks for bouncing valid email. If you want these checks turned off for your email you can place a file named ~/.spam_lover in your home directory on freefall.FreeBSD.org to disable the checks for your email. If you are subscribed to the &a.cvsall;, you will probably want to unsubscribe to avoid receiving duplicate copies of commit messages and their followups. All new committers also have a mentor assigned to them for the first few months. Your mentor is responsible for teaching you the rules and conventions of the project and guiding your first steps in the committer community. He or she is also personally responsible for your actions during this initial period. Until your mentor decides (and announces with a forced commit to access) that you have learned the ropes and are ready to commit on your own, you should not commit anything without first getting your mentor's review and approval, and you should document that approval with an Approved by: line in the commit message. All src commits should go to &os.current; first before being merged to &os.stable;. No major new features or high-risk modifications should be made to the &os.stable; branch. Preferred License for New Files Currently the &os; Project suggests and uses the following text as the preferred license scheme: Copyright © <Year> <Author>. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. The &os; project strongly discourages the so called advertising clause in new code. Due to the large number of contributors to the &os; project, complying with this clause for many commercial vendors has become difficult. If you have code in the tree with the advertising clause, please consider removing it. In fact, please consider using the above license for your code. The &os; project discourages completely new licenses and variations on the standard licenses. New licenses require the approval of core@FreeBSD.org to reside in the main repository. The more different licenses that are used in the tree, the more problems that this causes to those wishing to utilize this code, typically from unintended consequences from a poorly worded license. Developer Relations If you are working directly on your own code or on code which is already well established as your responsibility, then there is probably little need to check with other committers before jumping in with a commit. If you see a bug in an area of the system which is clearly orphaned (and there are a few such areas, to our shame), the same applies. If, however, you are about to modify something which is clearly being actively maintained by someone else (and it is only by watching the cvs-committers mailing list that you can really get a feel for just what is and is not) then consider sending the change to them instead, just as you would have before becoming a committer. For ports, you should contact the listed MAINTAINER in the Makefile. For other parts of the repository, if you are unsure who the active maintainer might be, it may help to scan the output of cvs log to see who has committed changes in the past. &a.fenner; has written a nice shell script that can help determine who the active maintainer might be. It lists each person who has committed to a given file along with the number of commits each person has made. It can be found on freefall at ~fenner/bin/whodid. If your queries go unanswered or the committer otherwise indicates a lack of proprietary interest in the area affected, go ahead and commit it. If you are unsure about a commit for any reason at all, have it reviewed by -hackers before committing. Better to have it flamed then and there rather than when it is part of the CVS repository. If you do happen to commit something which results in controversy erupting, you may also wish to consider backing the change out again until the matter is settled. Remember – with CVS we can always change it back. Do not impugn the intentions of someone you disagree with. If they see a different solution to a problem than you, or even a different problem, it is not because they are stupid, because they have questionable parentage, or because they are trying to destroy your hard work, personal image, or FreeBSD, but simply because they have a different outlook on the world. Different is good. Disagree honestly. Argue your position from its merits, be honest about any shortcomings it may have, and be open to seeing their solution, or even their vision of the problem, with an open mind. Accept correction. We are all fallible. When you have made a mistake, apologize and get on with life. Do not beat up yourself, and certainly do not beat up others for your mistake. Do not waste time on embarrassment or recrimination, just fix the problem and move on. Ask for help. Seek out (and give) peer reviews. One of the ways open source software is supposed to excel is in the number of eyeballs applied to it; this does not apply if nobody will review code. GNATS The FreeBSD Project utilizes GNATS for tracking bugs and change requests. Be sure that if you commit a fix or suggestion found in a GNATS PR, you use edit-pr pr-number on freefall to close it. It is also considered nice if you take time to close any PRs associated with your commits, if appropriate. You can also make use of &man.send-pr.1; yourself for proposing any change which you feel should probably be made, pending a more extensive peer-review first. You can find out more about GNATS at: - http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html + http://www.FreeBSD.org/support.html &man.send-pr.1; You can run a local copy of GNATS, and then integrate the FreeBSD GNATS tree in to it using CVSup. Then you can run GNATS commands locally, or use other interfaces, such as tkgnats. This lets you query the PR database without needing to be connected to the Internet. Using a local GNATS tree If you are not already downloading the GNATS tree, add this line to your supfile, and re-sup. Note that since GNATS is not under CVS control it has no tag, so if you are adding it to your existing supfile it should appear before any tag= entry as these remain active once set. gnats release=current prefix=/usr This will place the FreeBSD GNATS tree in /usr/gnats. You can use a refuse file to control which categories to receive. For example, to only receive docs PRs, put this line in /usr/local/etc/cvsup/sup/refuse The precise path depends on the *default base setting in your supfile. . gnats/[a-ce-z]* The rest of these examples assume you have only supped the docs category. Adjust them as necessary, depending on the categories you are syncing. Install the GNATS port from ports/databases/gnats. This will place the various GNATS directories under $PREFIX/share/gnats. Symlink the GNATS directories you are supping under the version of GNATS you have installed. &prompt.root; cd /usr/local/share/gnats/gnats-db &prompt.root; ln -s /usr/gnats/docs Repeat as necessary, depending on how many GNATS categories you are syncing. Update the GNATS categories file with these categories. The file is $PREFIX/share/gnats/gnats-db/gnats-adm/categories. # This category is mandatory pending:Category for faulty PRs:gnats-admin: # # FreeBSD categories # docs:Documentation Bug:freebsd-doc: Run $PREFIX/libexec/gnats/gen-index to recreate the GNATS index. The output has to be redirected to $PREFIX/share/gnats/gnats-db/gnats-adm/index. You can do this periodically from &man.cron.8;, or run &man.cvsup.1; from a shell script that does this as well. &prompt.root; /usr/local/libexec/gnats/gen-index \ > /usr/local/share/gnats/gnats-db/gnats-adm/index Test the configuration by querying the PR database. This command shows open docs PRs. &prompt.root; query-pr -c docs -s open Other interfaces, such as that provided by the databases/tkgnats port should also work nicely. Pick a PR and close it. This procedure only works to allow you to view and query the PRs locally. To edit or close them you will still have to log in to freefall and do it from there. Who's Who Besides the repository meisters, there are other FreeBSD project members and teams whom you will probably get to know in your role as a committer. Briefly, and by no means all-inclusively, these are: &a.jhb; John is the manager of the SMPng Project, and has authority over the architectural design and implementation of the move to fine-grained kernel threading and locking. He's also the editor of the SMPng Architecture Document. If you are working on fine-grained SMP and locking, please coordinate with John. You can learn more about the SMPng Project on its home page: &a.jake;, &a.tmm; Jake and Thomas are the maintainers of the &sparc64; hardware port. &a.doceng; doceng is the group responsible for the documentation build infrastructure, approving new documentation committers, and ensuring that the FreeBSD website and documentation on the FTP site is up to date with respect to the CVS tree. It is not a conflict resolution body. The vast majority of documentation related discussion takes place on the &a.doc;. Committers interested in contributing to the documentation should familiarize themselves with the Documentation Project Primer. &a.ru; Ruslan is Mister &man.mdoc.7;. If you are writing a manual page and need some advice on the structure, or the markup, ask Ruslan. &a.bde; Bruce is the Style Police-Meister. When you do a commit that could have been done better, Bruce will be there to tell you. Be thankful that someone is. Bruce is also very knowledgeable on the various standards applicable to FreeBSD. &a.gallatin; &a.mjacob; &a.dfr; &a.obrien; These are the primary developers and overseers of the DEC Alpha AXP platform. &a.dg; David is the overseer of the VM system. If you have a VM system change in mind, coordinate it with David. &a.dfr; &a.marcel; &a.peter; &a.ps; These are the primary developers and overseers of the Intel IA-64 platform, officially known as the &itanium; Processor Family (IPF). &a.murray; &a.steve; &a.rwatson; &a.jhb; &a.bmah; &a.scottl; &a.kensmith; &a.hrs; These are the members of the &a.re;. This team is responsible for setting release deadlines and controlling the release process. During code freezes, the release engineers have final authority on all changes to the system for whichever branch is pending release status. If there is something you want merged from &os.current; to &os.stable; (whatever values those may have at any given time), these are the people to talk to about it. Bruce is also the keeper of the release documentation (src/release/doc/*). If you commit a change that you think is worthy of mention in the release notes, please make sure Bruce knows about it. Better still, send him a patch with your suggested commentary. &a.benno; Benno is the official maintainer of the &powerpc; port. &a.brian; Official maintainer of /usr/sbin/ppp. &a.nectar; Jacques is the - FreeBSD Security + FreeBSD Security Officer and oversees the &a.security-officer;. &a.wollman; If you need advice on obscure network internals or are not sure of some potential change to the networking subsystem you have in mind, Garrett is someone to talk to. Garrett is also very knowledgeable on the various standards applicable to FreeBSD. &a.committers; cvs-committers is the entity that CVS uses to send you all your commit messages. You should never send email directly to this list. You should only send replies to this list when they are short and are directly related to a commit. &a.developers; All committers are subscribed to -developers. This list was created to be a forum for the committers community issues. Examples are Core voting, announcements, etc. This list is not intended as a place for code reviews or a replacement for the &a.arch; or the &a.audit;. In fact using it as such hurts the FreeBSD Project as it gives a sense of a closed list where general decisions affecting all of the FreeBSD using community are made without being open. Last, but not least never, never ever, email the &a.developers; and CC:/BCC: another FreeBSD list. Never, ever email another FreeBSD email list and CC:/BCC: the &a.developers;. Doing so can greatly diminish the benefits of this list. Also, never publicly post or forward emails sent to the &a.developers;. The act of sending to the &a.developers; vs. a public list means the information in the email is not for public consumption. SSH Quick-Start Guide If you are using FreeBSD 4.0 or later, OpenSSH is included in the base system. If you are using an earlier release, update and install one of the SSH ports. In general, you will probably want to get OpenSSH from the security/openssh port. You may also wish to check out the original ssh1 in the security/ssh port, but make certain you pay attention to its license. Note that both of these ports cannot be installed at the same time. If you do not wish to type your password in every time you use &man.ssh.1;, and you use RSA or DSA keys to authenticate, &man.ssh-agent.1; is there for your convenience. If you want to use &man.ssh-agent.1;, make sure that you run it before running other applications. X users, for example, usually do this from their .xsession or .xinitrc file. See &man.ssh-agent.1; for details. Generate a key pair using &man.ssh-keygen.1;. The key pair will wind up in your $HOME/.ssh/ directory. Send your public key ($HOME/.ssh/id_dsa.pub or $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) to the person setting you up as a committer so it can be put into yourlogin file in /c/ssh-keys/ on freefall. Now you should be able to use &man.ssh-add.1; for authentication once per session. This will prompt you for your private key's pass phrase, and then store it in your authentication agent (&man.ssh-agent.1;). If you no longer wish to have your key stored in the agent, issuing ssh-add -d will remove it. Test by doing something such as ssh freefall.FreeBSD.org ls /usr. For more information, see security/openssh, &man.ssh.1;, &man.ssh-add.1;, &man.ssh-agent.1;, &man.ssh-keygen.1;, and &man.scp.1;. The FreeBSD Committers' Big List of Rules Respect other committers. Respect other contributors. Discuss any significant change before committing. Respect existing maintainers (if listed in the MAINTAINER field in Makefile or in the MAINTAINER file in the top-level directory). Any disputed change must be backed out pending resolution of the dispute if requested by a maintainer. Security related changes may override a maintainer's wishes at the Security Officer's discretion. Changes go to &os.current; before &os.stable; unless specifically permitted by the release engineer or unless they are not applicable to &os.current;. Any non-trivial or non-urgent change which is applicable should also be allowed to sit in &os.current; for at least 3 days before merging so that it can be given sufficient testing. The release engineer has the same authority over the &os.stable; branch as outlined for the maintainer in rule #5. Do not fight in public with other committers; it looks bad. If you must strongly disagree about something, do so only in private. Respect all code freezes and read the committers and developers mailing lists in a timely manner so you know when a code freeze is in effect. When in doubt on any procedure, ask first! Test your changes before committing them. Do not commit to anything under the src/contrib, src/crypto, and src/sys/contrib trees without explicit approval from the respective maintainer(s). As noted, breaking some of these rules can be grounds for suspension or, upon repeated offense, permanent removal of commit privileges. Individual members of core have the power to temporarily suspend commit privileges until core as a whole has the chance to review the issue. In case of an emergency (a committer doing damage to the repository), a temporary suspension may also be done by the repository meisters. Only a 2/3 majority of core has the authority to suspend commit privileges for longer than a week or to remove them permanently. This rule does not exist to set core up as a bunch of cruel dictators who can dispose of committers as casually as empty soda cans, but to give the project a kind of safety fuse. If someone is out of control, it is important to be able to deal with this immediately rather than be paralyzed by debate. In all cases, a committer whose privileges are suspended or revoked is entitled to a hearing by core, the total duration of the suspension being determined at that time. A committer whose privileges are suspended may also request a review of the decision after 30 days and every 30 days thereafter (unless the total suspension period is less than 30 days). A committer whose privileges have been revoked entirely may request a review after a period of 6 months has elapsed. This review policy is strictly informal and, in all cases, core reserves the right to either act on or disregard requests for review if they feel their original decision to be the right one. In all other aspects of project operation, core is a subset of committers and is bound by the same rules. Just because someone is in core this does not mean that they have special dispensation to step outside any of the lines painted here; core's special powers only kick in when it acts as a group, not on an individual basis. As individuals, the core team members are all committers first and core second. Details Respect other committers. This means that you need to treat other committers as the peer-group developers that they are. Despite our occasional attempts to prove the contrary, one does not get to be a committer by being stupid and nothing rankles more than being treated that way by one of your peers. Whether we always feel respect for one another or not (and everyone has off days), we still have to treat other committers with respect at all times, on public forums and in private email. Being able to work together long term is this project's greatest asset, one far more important than any set of changes to the code, and turning arguments about code into issues that affect our long-term ability to work harmoniously together is just not worth the trade-off by any conceivable stretch of the imagination. To comply with this rule, do not send email when you are angry or otherwise behave in a manner which is likely to strike others as needlessly confrontational. First calm down, then think about how to communicate in the most effective fashion for convincing the other person(s) that your side of the argument is correct, do not just blow off some steam so you can feel better in the short term at the cost of a long-term flame war. Not only is this very bad energy economics, but repeated displays of public aggression which impair our ability to work well together will be dealt with severely by the project leadership and may result in suspension or termination of your commit privileges. The project leadership will take into account both public and private communications brought before it. It will not seek the disclosure of private communications, but it will take it into account if it is volunteered by the committers involved in the complaint. All of this is never an option which the project's leadership enjoys in the slightest, but unity comes first. No amount of code or good advice is worth trading that away. Respect other contributors. You were not always a committer. At one time you were a contributor. Remember that at all times. Remember what it was like trying to get help and attention. Do not forget that your work as a contributor was very important to you. Remember what it was like. Do not discourage, belittle, or demean contributors. Treat them with respect. They are our committers in waiting. They are every bit as important to the project as committers. Their contributions are as valid and as important as your own. After all, you made many contributions before you became a committer. Always remember that. Consider the points raised under and apply them also to contributors. Discuss any significant change before committing. The CVS repository is not where changes should be initially submitted for correctness or argued over, that should happen first in the mailing lists and the commit should only happen once something resembling consensus has been reached. This does not mean that you have to ask permission before correcting every obvious syntax error or manual page misspelling, simply that you should try to develop a feel for when a proposed change is not quite such a no-brainer and requires some feedback first. People really do not mind sweeping changes if the result is something clearly better than what they had before, they just do not like being surprised by those changes. The very best way of making sure that you are on the right track is to have your code reviewed by one or more other committers. When in doubt, ask for review! Respect existing maintainers if listed. Many parts of FreeBSD are not owned in the sense that any specific individual will jump up and yell if you commit a change to their area, but it still pays to check first. One convention we use is to put a maintainer line in the Makefile for any package or subtree which is being actively maintained by one or more people; see for documentation on this. Where sections of code have several maintainers, commits to affected areas by one maintainer need to be reviewed by at least one other maintainer. In cases where the maintainer-ship of something is not clear, you can also look at the CVS logs for the file(s) in question and see if someone has been working recently or predominantly in that area. Other areas of FreeBSD fall under the control of someone who manages an overall category of FreeBSD evolution, such as internationalization or networking. See http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/staff-who.html for more information on this. Any disputed change must be backed out pending resolution of the dispute if requested by a maintainer. Security related changes may override a maintainer's wishes at the Security Officer's discretion. This may be hard to swallow in times of conflict (when each side is convinced that they are in the right, of course) but CVS makes it unnecessary to have an ongoing dispute raging when it is far easier to simply reverse the disputed change, get everyone calmed down again and then try to figure out what is the best way to proceed. If the change turns out to be the best thing after all, it can be easily brought back. If it turns out not to be, then the users did not have to live with the bogus change in the tree while everyone was busily debating its merits. People very very rarely call for back-outs in the repository since discussion generally exposes bad or controversial changes before the commit even happens, but on such rare occasions the back-out should be done without argument so that we can get immediately on to the topic of figuring out whether it was bogus or not. Changes go to &os.current; before &os.stable; unless specifically permitted by the release engineer or unless they are not applicable to &os.current;. Any non-trivial or non-urgent change which is applicable should also be allowed to sit in &os.current; for at least 3 days before merging so that it can be given sufficient testing. The release engineer has the same authority over the &os.stable; branch as outlined in rule #5. This is another do not argue about it issue since it is the release engineer who is ultimately responsible (and gets beaten up) if a change turns out to be bad. Please respect this and give the release engineer your full cooperation when it comes to the &os.stable; branch. The management of &os.stable; may frequently seem to be overly conservative to the casual observer, but also bear in mind the fact that conservatism is supposed to be the hallmark of &os.stable; and different rules apply there than in &os.current;. There is also really no point in having &os.current; be a testing ground if changes are merged over to &os.stable; immediately. Changes need a chance to be tested by the &os.current; developers, so allow some time to elapse before merging unless the &os.stable; fix is critical, time sensitive or so obvious as to make further testing unnecessary (spelling fixes to manual pages, obvious bug/typo fixes, etc.) In other words, apply common sense. Changes to the security branches (for example, RELENG_4_5) must be approved by a member of the &a.security-officer;, or in some cases, by a member of the &a.re;. Do not fight in public with other committers; it looks bad. If you must strongly disagree about something, do so only in private. This project has a public image to uphold and that image is very important to all of us, especially if we are to continue to attract new members. There will be occasions when, despite everyone's very best attempts at self-control, tempers are lost and angry words are exchanged. The best thing that can be done in such cases is to minimize the effects of this until everyone has cooled back down. That means that you should not air your angry words in public and you should not forward private correspondence to public mailing lists or aliases. What people say one-to-one is often much less sugar-coated than what they would say in public, and such communications therefore have no place there - they only serve to inflame an already bad situation. If the person sending you a flame-o-gram at least had the grace to send it privately, then have the grace to keep it private yourself. If you feel you are being unfairly treated by another developer, and it is causing you anguish, bring the matter up with core rather than taking it public. Core will do its best to play peace makers and get things back to sanity. In cases where the dispute involves a change to the codebase and the participants do not appear to be reaching an amicable agreement, core may appoint a mutually-agreeable 3rd party to resolve the dispute. All parties involved must then agree to be bound by the decision reached by this 3rd party. Respect all code freezes and read the committers and developers mailing list on a timely basis so you know when a code freeze is in effect. Committing unapproved changes during a code freeze is a really big mistake and committers are expected to keep up-to-date on what is going on before jumping in after a long absence and committing 10 megabytes worth of accumulated stuff. People who abuse this on a regular basis will have their commit privileges suspended until they get back from the FreeBSD Happy Reeducation Camp we run in Greenland. When in doubt on any procedure, ask first! Many mistakes are made because someone is in a hurry and just assumes they know the right way of doing something. If you have not done it before, chances are good that you do not actually know the way we do things and really need to ask first or you are going to completely embarrass yourself in public. There is no shame in asking how in the heck do I do this? We already know you are an intelligent person; otherwise, you would not be a committer. Test your changes before committing them. This may sound obvious, but if it really were so obvious then we probably would not see so many cases of people clearly not doing this. If your changes are to the kernel, make sure you can still compile both GENERIC and LINT. If your changes are anywhere else, make sure you can still make world. If your changes are to a branch, make sure your testing occurs with a machine which is running that code. If you have a change which also may break another architecture, be sure and test on all supported architectures. Currently, this is only the x86 and the Alpha so it is pretty easy to do. If you need to test on the AXP, your account on beast.FreeBSD.org will let you compile and test Alpha binaries/kernels/etc. As other architectures are added to the FreeBSD supported platforms list, the appropriate shared testing resources will be made available. Do not commit to anything under the src/contrib, src/crypto, and src/sys/contrib trees without explicit approval from the respective maintainer(s). The trees mentioned above are for contributed software usually imported onto a vendor branch. Committing something there, even if it does not take the file off the vendor branch, may cause unnecessary headaches for those responsible for maintaining that particular piece of software. Thus, unless you have explicit approval from the maintainer (or you are the maintainer), do not commit there! Please note that this does not mean you should not try to improve the software in question; you are still more than welcome to do so. Ideally, you should submit your patches to the vendor. If your changes are FreeBSD-specific, talk to the maintainer; they may be willing to apply them locally. But whatever you do, do not commit there by yourself! Contact the &a.core; if you wish to take up maintainership of an unmaintained part of the tree. Policy on Multiple Architectures FreeBSD has added several new arch ports during the 5.0 release cycle and is truly no longer an &i386; centric operating system. In an effort to make it easier to keep FreeBSD portable across the platforms we support, core has developed the following mandate:
Our 32 bit reference platform is i386, and our 64 bit reference platform is Sparc64. Major design work (including major API and ABI changes) must prove itself on at least one 32 bit and at least one 64 bit platform, preferably the primary reference platforms, before it may be committed to the source tree.
The i386 and Sparc64 platforms were chosen due to being more readily available to developers and as representatives of more diverse processor and system designs - big vs little endian, register file vs register stack, different DMA and cache implementations, hardware page tables vs software TLB management etc. While the Alpha is a 64 bit processor, it is a more traditional processor design and does not provide as good a testbed for many of the challenges that the other 64 bit platform ports face. The ia64 platform has many of the same complications that Sparc64 has, but is still limited in availability to developers. We will continue to re-evaluate this policy as cost and availability of the 64 bit platforms change. Developers should also be aware of our Tier Policy for the long term support of hardware architectures. The rules here are intended to provide guidance during the development process, and are distinct from the requirements for features and architectures listed in that section. The Tier rules for feature support on architectures at release-time are more strict than the rules for changes during the development process. Other Suggestions When committing documentation changes, use a spell checker before committing. For all SGML docs, you should also verify that your formatting directives are correct by running make lint. For all on-line manual pages, run manck (from ports) over the manual page to verify all of the cross references and file references are correct and that the man page has all of the appropriate MLINKs installed. Do not mix style fixes with new functionality. A style fix is any change which does not modify the functionality of the code. Mixing the changes obfuscates the functionality change when using cvs diff, which can hide any new bugs. Do not include whitespace changes with content changes in commits to doc/ or www/. The extra clutter in the diffs makes the translators' job much more difficult. Instead, make any style or whitespace changes in separate commits that are clearly labeled as such in the commit message. Deprecating Features When it is necessary to remove functionality from software in the base system the following guidelines should be followed whenever possible: Mention is made in the manual page and possibly the release notes that the option, utility, or interface is deprecated. Use of the deprecated feature generates a warning. The option, utility, or interface is preserved until the next major (point zero) release. The option, utility, or interface is removed and no longer documented. It is now obsolete. It is also generally a good idea to note its removal in the release notes. Support for Multiple Architectures FreeBSD is a highly portable operating system intended to function on many different types of hardware architectures. Maintaining clean separation of Machine Dependent (MD) and Machine Independent (MI) code, as well as minimizing MD code, is an important part of our strategy to remain agile with regards to current hardware trends. Each new hardware architecture supported by FreeBSD adds substantially to the cost of code maintenance, toolchain support, and release engineering. It also dramatically increases the cost of effective testing of kernel changes. As such, there is strong motivation to differentiate between classes of support for various architectures while remaining strong in a few key architectures that are seen as the FreeBSD "target audience". Statement of General Intent The FreeBSD Project targets "production quality commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) workstation, server, and high-end embedded systems". By retaining a focus on a narrow set of architectures of interest in these environments, the FreeBSD Project is able to maintain high levels of quality, stability, and performance, as well as minimize the load on various support teams on the project, such as the ports team, documentation team, security officer, and release engineering teams. Diversity in hardware support broadens the options for FreeBSD consumers by offering new features and usage opportunities (such as support for 64-bit CPUs, use in embedded environments, etc.), but these benefits must always be carefully considered in terms of the real-world maintenance cost associated with additional platform support. The FreeBSD Project differentiates platform targets into four tiers. Each tier includes a specification of the requirements for an architecture to be in that tier, as well as specifying the obligations of developers with regards to the platform. In addition, a policy is defined regarding the circumstances required to change the tier of an architecture. Tier 1: Fully Supported Architectures Tier 1 platforms are fully supported by the security officer, release engineering, and toolchain maintenance staff. New features added to the operating system must be fully functional across all Tier 1 architectures for every release (features which are inherently architecture-specific, such as support for hardware device drivers, may be exempt from this requirement). In general, all Tier 1 platforms must have build and tinderbox support either in the FreeBSD.org cluster, or easily available for all developers. Tier 1 architectures are expected to be Production Quality with respects to all aspects of the FreeBSD operating system, including installation and development environments. Current Tier 1 platforms are i386, Sparc64, AMD64, PC98, and Alpha. Tier 2: Developmental Architectures Tier 2 platforms are not supported by the security officer and release engineering teams. At the discretion of the toolchain maintainer, they may be supported in the toolchain. New features added to FreeBSD should be feasible to implement on these platforms, but an implementation is not required before the feature may be added to the FreeBSD source tree. The implementation of a Tier 2 architecture may be committed to the main FreeBSD tree as long as it does not interfere with production work on Tier 1 platforms, or substantially with other Tier 2 platforms. Before a Tier 2 platform can be added to the FreeBSD base source tree, the platform must be able to boot to at least single-user mode on real world commodity hardware. Some exceptions to these rules may be made for new hardware that is under development by hardware vendors, but not yet available to the project. Tier 2 architectures are usually systems targeted at Tier 1 support, but that are still under development. Architectures reaching end of life may also be moved from Tier 1 status to Tier 2 status as the availability of resources to continue to maintain the system in a Production Quality state diminishes. Current Tier 2 platforms are PowerPC and ia64. Tier 3: Experimental Architectures Tier 3 platforms are not supported by the security officer and release engineering teams. At the discretion of the toolchain maintainer, they may be supported in the toolchain. Tier 3 platforms are architectures for which hardware is not or will not be available to the project in the foreseeable future, for which there are two or fewer active developers, that can not boot to at least single-user mode on real hardware (or a simulator for new hardware platforms), or which are considered legacy systems unlikely to see broad future use. Tier 3 systems will not be committed to the base source tree, although support for Tier 3 systems may be worked on in the FreeBSD Perforce Repository, providing source control and easier change integration from the main FreeBSD tree. Current Tier 3 platforms are &s390;. Tier 4: Unsupported Architectures Tier 4 systems are not supported in any form by the project. All systems not otherwise classified into a support tier are Tier 4 systems. Policy on Changing the Tier of an Architecture Systems may only be moved from one tier to another by approval of the FreeBSD Core Team, which shall make that decision in collaboration with the Security Officer, Release Engineering, and toolchain maintenance teams. Ports Specific FAQ Adding a New Port How do I add a new port? First, please read the section about repository copies. The easiest way to add a new port is to use the addport script on freefall. It will add a port from the directory you specify, determining the category automatically from the port Makefile. It will also add an entry to the CVSROOT/modules file and the port's category Makefile. It was written by &a.mharo; and &a.will;, but Will is the current maintainer so please send questions/patches about addport to him. Any other things I need to know when I add a new port? Check the port, preferably to make sure it compiles and packages correctly. This is the recommended sequence: &prompt.root; make install &prompt.root; make package &prompt.root; make deinstall &prompt.root; pkg_add package you built above &prompt.root; make deinstall &prompt.root; make reinstall &prompt.root; make package The Porters Handbook contains more detailed instructions. Use &man.portlint.1; to check the syntax of the port. You do not necessarily have to eliminate all warnings but make sure you have fixed the simple ones. If the port came from a submitter who has not contributed to the project before, add that person's name to the Additional Contributors section of the FreeBSD Contributors List. Close the PR if the port came in as a PR. To close a PR, just do edit-pr PR# on freefall and change the state from open to closed. You will be asked to enter a log message and then you are done. Repository Copies When do we need a repository copy? When you want to add a port that is related to any port that is already in the tree in a separate directory, you have to do a repository copy. Here related means it is a different version or a slightly modified version. Examples are print/ghostscript* (different versions) and x11-wm/windowmaker* (English-only and internationalized version). Another example is when a port is moved from one subdirectory to another, or when you want to change the name of a directory because the author(s) renamed their software even though it is a descendant of a port already in a tree. When do we not need a repository copy? When there is no history to preserve. If a port is added into a wrong category and is moved immediately, it suffices to simply cvs remove the old one and addport the new one. What do I need to do? File a PR in GNATS, listing the reasons for the repository copy request. Assign it to portmgr and set state to repocopy. If &a.portmgr; approves it, it will be reassigned to cvs. &a.cvs; will do a repository copy from the old to the new location, and reassign the PR back to you. Once everything is done, perform the following: When a port has been repo copied: Upgrade the copied port to the new version (remember to change the PORTNAME so there are not duplicate ports with the same name). Add the new subdirectory to the SUBDIR listing in the parent directory Makefile. You can run make checksubdirs in the parent directory to check this. If the port changed categories, modify the CATEGORIES line of the port's Makefile accordingly Add the new module entry. Add an entry to ports/MOVED. When removing a port: Perform a thorough check of the ports collection for any dependencies on the old port location/name, and update them. Running grep on INDEX is not enough because some ports have dependencies enabled by compile-time options. A full grep -r of the ports collection is recommended. Remove the old port, the old SUBDIR entry and the old module entry. Add an entry to ports/MOVED. After repo moves (rename operations where a port is copied and the old location is removed): Follow the same steps that are outlined in the previous two entries, to activate the new location of the port and remove the old one. Ports Freeze What is a ports freeze? Before a release, it is necessary to restrict commits to the ports tree for a short period of time while the packages and the release itself are being built. This is to ensure consistency among the various parts of the release, and is called the ports freeze. How long is a ports freeze? Usually an hour or two. What does it mean to me? During the ports freeze, you are not allowed to commit anything to the tree without explicit approval from the ports manager. Explicit approval here means either of the following: You asked the ports manager and got a reply saying, Go ahead and commit it. The ports manager sent a mail to you or the mailing lists during the ports freeze pointing out that the port is broken and has to be fixed. Note that you do not have implicit permission to fix a port during the freeze just because it is broken. How do I know when the ports freeze starts? The ports manager will send out warning messages to the &a.ports; and &a.committers; announcing the start of the impending release, usually two or three weeks in advance. The exact starting time will not be determined until a few days before the actual release. This is because the ports freeze has to be synchronized with the release, and it is usually not known until then when exactly the release will be rolled. When the freeze starts, there will be another announcement to the &a.committers;, of course. How do I know when the ports freeze ends? A few hours after the release, the ports manager will send out a mail to the &a.ports; and &a.committers; announcing the end of the ports freeze. Note that the release being cut does not automatically end the freeze. We have to make sure there will not be any last minute snafus that result in an immediate re-rolling of the release. Creating a New Category What is the procedure for creating a new category? A developer who wishes to propose a new category should submit a detailed rationale for the new category, including why existing categories are not sufficient, and the list of ports proposed to move. Before submitting, keep in mind that there is a fair amount of work involved from multiple parties; that the changes affect everyone who wants to keep up-to-date with the entire ports tree; and that such proposals tend to attract controversy. What do I need to do? The procedure is a strict superset of the one to repocopy individual ports (see above). File a PR in GNATS, listing the reasons for the category request. Preferably, this should also include patches for Makefiles for the old ports, the Makefiles for their old categories, and the VALID_CATEGORIES definition in ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk. Assign the PR to the &a.portmgr; (as portmgr). If they approve it, it will be reassigned to &a.cvs; (as cvs), who will do a repository copy from the old to the new locations and reassign the PR back to you. Once everything is done, perform the following steps: Upgrade each copied port's Makefile. Do not connect the new category to the build yet. To do this, you will need to: Change the port's CATEGORIES (this was the point of the exercise, remember?) The new category should be listed first. This will help to ensure that the the PKGORIGIN is correct. Run a make describe. Since the top-level make index that you will be running in a few steps is an iteration of make describe over the entire ports hierarchy, catching any errors here will save you having to re-run that step later on. If you want to be really thorough, now might be a good time to run &man.portlint.1;. Check that the PKGORIGINs are correct. The ports system uses each port's CATEGORIES entry to create its PKGORIGIN, which is used to connect installed packages to the port directory they were built from. If this entry is wrong, common port tools like &man.pkg.version.1; and &man.portupgrade.1; fail. To do this, use the chkorigin.sh tool, as follows: env PORTSDIR=/path/to/ports sh -e /path/to/ports/Tools/scripts/chkorigin.sh . This will check every port in the ports tree, even those not connected to the build, so you can run it directly after the repocopy. Hint: do not forget to look at the PKGORIGINs of any slave ports of the ports you just repocopied! On your own local system, test the proposed changes: first, comment out the SUBDIR entries in the old ports' categories' Makefiles; then enable building the new category in ports/Makefile. Run make checksubdirs in the affected category directories to check the SUBDIR entries. Next, in the ports/ directory, run make index. This can take over 40 minutes on even modern systems; however, it is a necessary step to prevent problems for other people. Once this is done, you can commit the updated ports/Makefile to connect the new category to the build and also commit the Makefile changes for the old category or categories. Change all the affected module entries in CVSROOT-ports/modules. Add appropriate entries to ports/MOVED. Update the instructions for &man.cvsup.1; by modifying distrib/cvsup/sup/README and adding the following files into cvsup/sup/ports-categoryname: list.cvs and releases. (Note: these are in the src, not the ports, repository). Submit a docs PR to add the new category to both the Porter's Handbook and to www/en/ports/categories. The procedure to update the ports web pages + url="&url.main;/ports/index.html">ports web pages to reflect the new category is not yet defined. Only once all the above have been done, and no one is any longer reporting problems with the new ports, should the old ports be deleted from their previous locations in the repository. Miscellaneous Questions How do I know if my port is building correctly or not? First, go check . There you will find error logs from the latest package building runs on all supported platforms for the most recent branches. However, just because the port does not show up there does not mean it is building correctly. (One of the dependencies may have failed, for instance.) Here are the relevant directories on bento, so feel free to dig around. /a/asami/portbuild/<arch>/<major_version>/errors error logs from latest <major_version> run on <arch> /logs all logs from latest <major_version> run on <arch> /packages packages from latest <major_version> run on <arch> /bak/errors error logs from last complete <major_version> run on <arch> /bak/logs all logs from last complete <major_version> run on <arch> /bak/packages packages from last complete <major_version> run on <arch> Basically, if the port shows up in packages, or it is in logs but not in errors, it built fine. (The errors directories are what you get from the web page.) I added a new port. Do I need to add it to the INDEX? No. The ports manager will regenerate the INDEX and commit it every few days. Are there any other files I am not allowed to touch? Any file directly under ports/, or any file under a subdirectory that starts with an uppercase letter (Mk/, Tools/, etc.). In particular, the ports manager is very protective of ports/Mk/bsd.port*.mk so do not commit changes to those files unless you want to face his wra(i)th. What is the proper procedure for updating the checksum for a port's distfile when the file changes without a version change? When the checksum for a port's distfile is updated due to the author updating the file without changing the port's revision, the commit message should include a summary of the relevant diffs between the original and new distfile to ensure that the distfile has not been corrupted or maliciously altered. If the current version of the port has been in the ports tree for a while, a copy of the old distfile will usually be available on the ftp servers; otherwise the author or maintainer should be contacted to find out why the distfile has changed. Perks of the Job Unfortunately, there are not many perks involved with being a committer. Recognition as a competent software engineer is probably the only thing that will be of benefit in the long run. However, there are at least some perks: Direct access to cvsup-master As a committer, you may apply to &a.kuriyama; for direct access to cvsup-master.FreeBSD.org, providing the public key output from cvpasswd yourusername@FreeBSD.org freefall.FreeBSD.org. Please note: you must specify freefall.FreeBSD.org on the cvpasswd command line even though the actual server is cvsup-master. Access to cvsup-master should not be overused as it is a busy machine. A Free 4-CD Set or DVD Subscription FreeBSD Mall, Inc. offers a free subscription of the 4-CD set or the DVD product to all FreeBSD committers. Information about how to obtain your free media is mailed to developers@FreeBSD.org following each major release. Miscellaneous Questions Why are trivial or cosmetic changes to files on a vendor branch a bad idea? From now on, every new vendor release of that file will need to have patches merged in by hand. From now on, every new vendor release of that file will need to have patches verified by hand. The option does not work very well. Ask &a.obrien; for horror stories. How do I add a new file to a CVS branch? To add a file onto a branch, simply checkout or update to the branch you want to add to and then add the file using cvs add as you normally would. For example, if you wanted to MFC the file src/sys/alpha/include/smp.h from HEAD to RELENG_4 and it does not exist in RELENG_4 yet, you would use the following steps: MFC'ing a New File &prompt.user; cd sys/alpha/include &prompt.user; cvs update -rRELENG_4 cvs update: Updating . U clockvar.h U console.h ... &prompt.user; cvs update -kk -Ap smp.h > smp.h =================================================================== Checking out smp.h RCS: /usr/cvs/src/sys/alpha/include/smp.h,v VERS: 1.1 *************** &prompt.user; cvs add smp.h cvs add: scheduling file `smp.h' for addition on branch `RELENG_4' cvs add: use 'cvs commit' to add this file permanently &prompt.user; cvs commit What meta information should I include in a commit message? As well as including an informative message with each commit you may need to include some additional information as well. This information consists of one or more lines containing the key word or phrase, a colon, tabs for formatting, and then the additional information. The key words or phrases are: PR: The problem report (if any) which is affected (typically, by being closed) by this commit. Submitted by: The name and e-mail address of the person that submitted the fix; for committers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster. Reviewed by: The name and e-mail address of the person or people that reviewed the change; for committers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster. If a patch was submitted to a mailing list for review, and the review was favorable, then just include the list name. Approved by: The name and e-mail address of the person or people that approved the change; for committers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster. It is customary to get prior approval for a commit if it is to an area of the tree to which you do not usually commit. In addition, during the run up to a new release all commits must be approved by the release engineering team. If these are your first commits then you should have passed them past your mentor first, and you should list your mentor, as in ``username-of-mentor (mentor)''. Obtained from: The name of the project (if any) from which the code was obtained. MFC after: If you wish to receive an e-mail reminder to MFC at a later date, specify the number of days, weeks, or months after which an MFC is planned. Commit log for a commit based on a PR You want to commit a change based on a PR submitted by John Smith containing a patch. The end of the commit message should look something like this. ... PR: foo/12345 Submitted by: John Smith <John.Smith@example.com> Commit log for a commit needing review You want to change the virtual memory system. You have posted patches to the appropriate mailing list (in this case, freebsd-arch) and the changes have been approved. ... Reviewed by: -arch Commit log for a commit needing approval You want to commit a change to a section of the tree with a MAINTAINER assigned. You have collaborated with the listed MAINTAINER, who has told you to go ahead and commit. ... Approved by: abc Where abc is the account name of the person who approved. Commit log for a commit bringing in code from OpenBSD You want to commit some code based on work done in the OpenBSD project. ... Obtained from: OpenBSD Commit log for a change to &os.current; with a planned commit to &os.stable; to follow at a later date. You want to commit some code which will be merged from &os.current; into the &os.stable; branch after two weeks. ... MFC after: 2 weeks Where 2 is the number of days, weeks, or months after which an MFC is planned. The weeks option may be day, days, week, weeks, month, months, or may be left off (in which case, days will be assumed). In some cases you may need to combine some of these. Consider the situation where a user has submitted a PR containing code from the NetBSD project. You are looking at the PR, but it is not an area of the tree you normally work in, so you have decided to get the change reviewed by the arch mailing list. Since the change is complex, you opt to MFC after one month to allow adequate testing. The extra information to include in the commit would look something like PR: foo/54321 Submitted by: John Smith <John.Smith@example.com> Reviewed by: -arch Obtained from: NetBSD MFC after: 1 month How do I access people.FreeBSD.org to put up personal or project information? people.FreeBSD.org is the same as freefall.FreeBSD.org. Just create a public_html directory. Anything you place in that directory will automatically be visible under . Where are the mailing list archives stored? The mailing lists are archived under /g/mail which will show up as /hub/g/mail with &man.pwd.1;. This location is accessible from any machine on the FreeBSD cluster.
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/article.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/article.sgml index a6360fa990..77f2ca1d19 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/article.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributing/article.sgml @@ -1,562 +1,564 @@ %man; %freebsd; %newsgroups; %authors; %mailing-lists; %trademarks; + +%urls; ]>
Contributing to FreeBSD $FreeBSD$ This article describes the different ways in which an individual or organization may contribute to the FreeBSD Project. Jordan Hubbard Contributed by &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.ieee; &tm-attrib.general; contributing So you want to contribute to FreeBSD? That is great! FreeBSD relies on the contributions of its user base to survive. Your contributions are not only appreciated, they are vital to FreeBSD's continued growth. Contrary to what some people might have you believe, you do not need to be a hot-shot programmer or a close personal friend of the FreeBSD core team to have your contributions accepted. A large and growing number of international contributors, of greatly varying ages and areas of technical expertise, develop FreeBSD. There is always more work to be done than there are people available to do it, and more help is always appreciated. The FreeBSD project is responsible for an entire operating system environment, rather than just a kernel or a few scattered utilities. As such, our TODO lists span a very wide range of tasks: from documentation, beta testing and presentation, to the system installer and highly specialized types of kernel development. People of any skill level, in almost any area, can almost certainly help the project. Commercial entities engaged in FreeBSD-related enterprises are also encouraged to contact us. Do you need a special extension to make your product work? You will find us receptive to your requests, given that they are not too outlandish. Are you working on a value-added product? Please let us know! We may be able to work cooperatively on some aspect of it. The free software world is challenging many existing assumptions about how software is developed, sold, and maintained, and we urge you to at least give it a second look. What Is Needed The following list of tasks and sub-projects represents something of an amalgam of various TODO lists and user requests. Ongoing Non-Programmer Tasks Many people who are involved in FreeBSD are not programmers. The Project includes documentation writers, Web designers, and support people. All that these people need to contribute is an investment of time and a willingness to learn. Read through the FAQ and Handbook periodically. If anything is badly explained, out of date or even just completely wrong, let us know. Even better, send us a fix (SGML is not difficult to learn, but there is no objection to ASCII submissions). Help translate FreeBSD documentation into your native language. If documentation already exists for your language, you can help translate additional documents or verify that the translations are up-to-date. First take a look at the Translations FAQ in the FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer. You are not committing yourself to translating every single FreeBSD document by doing this — as a volunteer, you can do as much or as little translation as you desire. Once someone begins translating, others almost always join the effort. If you only have the time or energy to translate one part of the documentation, please translate the installation instructions. Read the &a.questions; and &ng.misc; occasionally (or even regularly). It can be very satisfying to share your expertise and help people solve their problems; sometimes you may even learn something new yourself! These forums can also be a source of ideas for things to work on. Ongoing Programmer Tasks Most of the tasks listed here require either a considerable investment of time, or an in-depth knowledge of the FreeBSD kernel, or both. However, there are also many useful tasks which are suitable for weekend hackers. If you run FreeBSD-CURRENT and have a good Internet connection, there is a machine current.FreeBSD.org which builds a full release once a day—every now and again, try to install the latest release from it and report any failures in the process. Read the &a.bugs;. There might be a problem you can comment constructively on or with patches you can test. Or you could even try to fix one of the problems yourself. If you know of any bug fixes which have been successfully applied to -CURRENT but have not been merged into -STABLE after a decent interval (normally a couple of weeks), send the committer a polite reminder. Move contributed software to src/contrib in the source tree. Make sure code in src/contrib is up to date. Build the source tree (or just part of it) with extra warnings enabled and clean up the warnings. Fix warnings for ports which do deprecated things like using gets() or including malloc.h. If you have contributed any ports, send your patches back to the original authors (this will make your life easier when they bring out the next version). Get copies of formal standards like &posix;. You can get some links about these standards at the FreeBSD C99 & POSIX Standards Conformance Project web site. Compare FreeBSD's behavior to that required by the standard. If the behavior differs, particularly in subtle or obscure corners of the specification, send in a PR about it. If you are able, figure out how to fix it and include a patch in the PR. If you think the standard is wrong, ask the standards body to consider the question. Suggest further tasks for this list! Work through the PR Database problem reports database The FreeBSD PR list shows all the current active problem reports and requests for enhancement that have been submitted by FreeBSD users. The PR database includes both programmer and non-programmer tasks. Look through the open PRs, and see if anything there takes your interest. Some of these might be very simple tasks that just need an extra pair of eyes to look over them and confirm that the fix in the PR is a good one. Others might be much more complex, or might not even have a fix included at all. Start with the PRs that have not been assigned to anyone else. If a PR is assigned to someone else, but it looks like something you can handle, email the person it is assigned to and ask if you can work on it—they might already have a patch ready to be tested, or further ideas that you can discuss with them. How to Contribute Contributions to the system generally fall into one or more of the following 5 categories: Bug Reports and General Commentary An idea or suggestion of general technical interest should be mailed to the &a.hackers;. Likewise, people with an interest in such things (and a tolerance for a high volume of mail!) may subscribe to the &a.hackers;. See The FreeBSD Handbook for more information about this and other mailing lists. If you find a bug or are submitting a specific change, please report it using the &man.send-pr.1; program or its - WEB-based + WEB-based equivalent. Try to fill-in each field of the bug report. Unless they exceed 65KB, include any patches directly in the report. If the patch is suitable to be applied to the source tree put [PATCH] in the synopsis of the report. When including patches, do not use cut-and-paste because cut-and-paste turns tabs into spaces and makes them unusable. Consider compressing patches and using &man.uuencode.1; if they exceed 20KB. After filing a report, you should receive confirmation along with a tracking number. Keep this tracking number so that you can update us with details about the problem by sending mail to FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org. Use the number as the message subject, e.g. "Re: kern/3377". Additional information for any bug report should be submitted this way. If you do not receive confirmation in a timely fashion (3 days to a week, depending on your email connection) or are, for some reason, unable to use the &man.send-pr.1; command, then you may ask someone to file it for you by sending mail to the &a.bugs;. See also this article on how to write good problem reports. Changes to the Documentation documentation submissions Changes to the documentation are overseen by the &a.doc;. Please look at the FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for complete instructions. Send submissions and changes (even small ones are welcome!) using &man.send-pr.1; as described in Bug Reports and General Commentary. Changes to Existing Source Code FreeBSD-CURRENT An addition or change to the existing source code is a somewhat trickier affair and depends a lot on how far out of date you are with the current state of FreeBSD development. There is a special on-going release of FreeBSD known as FreeBSD-CURRENT which is made available in a variety of ways for the convenience of developers working actively on the system. See The FreeBSD Handbook for more information about getting and using FreeBSD-CURRENT. Working from older sources unfortunately means that your changes may sometimes be too obsolete or too divergent for easy re-integration into FreeBSD. Chances of this can be minimized somewhat by subscribing to the &a.announce; and the &a.current; lists, where discussions on the current state of the system take place. Assuming that you can manage to secure fairly up-to-date sources to base your changes on, the next step is to produce a set of diffs to send to the FreeBSD maintainers. This is done with the &man.diff.1; command. The preferred &man.diff.1; format for submitting patches is the unified output format generated by diff -u. However, for patches that substantially change a region of code, a context output format diff generated by diff -c may be more readable and thus preferable. diff For example: &prompt.user; diff -c oldfile newfile or &prompt.user; diff -c -r olddir newdir would generate such a set of context diffs for the given source file or directory hierarchy. Likewise, &prompt.user; diff -u oldfile newfile or &prompt.user; diff -u -r olddir newdir would do the same, except in the unified diff format. See the manual page for &man.diff.1; for more details. Once you have a set of diffs (which you may test with the &man.patch.1; command), you should submit them for inclusion with FreeBSD. Use the &man.send-pr.1; program as described in Bug Reports and General Commentary. Do not just send the diffs to the &a.hackers; or they will get lost! We greatly appreciate your submission (this is a volunteer project!); because we are busy, we may not be able to address it immediately, but it will remain in the PR database until we do. Indicate your submission by including [PATCH] in the synopsis of the report. uuencode If you feel it appropriate (e.g. you have added, deleted, or renamed files), bundle your changes into a tar file and run the &man.uuencode.1; program on it. Archives created with &man.shar.1; are also welcome. If your change is of a potentially sensitive nature, e.g. you are unsure of copyright issues governing its further distribution or you are simply not ready to release it without a tighter review first, then you should send it to &a.core; directly rather than submitting it with &man.send-pr.1;. The &a.core; reaches a much smaller group of people who do much of the day-to-day work on FreeBSD. Note that this group is also very busy and so you should only send mail to them where it is truly necessary. Please refer to &man.intro.9; and &man.style.9; for some information on coding style. We would appreciate it if you were at least aware of this information before submitting code. New Code or Major Value-Added Packages In the case of a significant contribution of a large body work, or the addition of an important new feature to FreeBSD, it becomes almost always necessary to either send changes as uuencoded tar files or upload them to a web or FTP site for other people to access. If you do not have access to a web or FTP site, ask on an appropriate FreeBSD mailing list for someone to host the changes for you. When working with large amounts of code, the touchy subject of copyrights also invariably comes up. Acceptable copyrights for code included in FreeBSD are: BSD copyright The BSD copyright. This copyright is most preferred due to its no strings attached nature and general attractiveness to commercial enterprises. Far from discouraging such commercial use, the FreeBSD Project actively encourages such participation by commercial interests who might eventually be inclined to invest something of their own into FreeBSD. GPLGNU General Public License GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License, or GPL. This license is not quite as popular with us due to the amount of extra effort demanded of anyone using the code for commercial purposes, but given the sheer quantity of GPL'd code we currently require (compiler, assembler, text formatter, etc) it would be silly to refuse additional contributions under this license. Code under the GPL also goes into a different part of the tree, that being /sys/gnu or /usr/src/gnu, and is therefore easily identifiable to anyone for whom the GPL presents a problem. Contributions coming under any other type of copyright must be carefully reviewed before their inclusion into FreeBSD will be considered. Contributions for which particularly restrictive commercial copyrights apply are generally rejected, though the authors are always encouraged to make such changes available through their own channels. To place a BSD-style copyright on your work, include the following text at the very beginning of every source code file you wish to protect, replacing the text between the %% with the appropriate information: Copyright (c) %%proper_years_here%% %%your_name_here%%, %%your_state%% %%your_zip%%. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY %%your_name_here%% ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL %%your_name_here%% BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. $Id$ For your convenience, a copy of this text can be found in /usr/share/examples/etc/bsd-style-copyright. Money, Hardware or Internet Access We are always very happy to accept donations to further the cause of the FreeBSD Project and, in a volunteer effort like ours, a little can go a long way! Donations of hardware are also very important to expanding our list of supported peripherals since we generally lack the funds to buy such items ourselves. <anchor id="donations">Donating Funds The FreeBSD Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt foundation established to further the goals of the FreeBSD Project. As a 501(c)3 entity, the Foundation is generally exempt from US federal income tax as well as Colorado State income tax. Donations to a tax-exempt entity are often deductible from taxable federal income. Donations may be sent in check form to:
The FreeBSD Foundation 7321 Brockway Dr. Boulder, CO 80303 USA
The FreeBSD Foundation is now able to accept donations through the web with PayPal. To place a donation, please visit the Foundation web site. More information about the FreeBSD Foundation can be found in The FreeBSD Foundation -- an Introduction. To contact the Foundation by email, write to bod@FreeBSDFoundation.org. Donating Hardware donations The FreeBSD Project happily accepts donations of hardware that it can find good use for. If you are interested in donating hardware, please contact the Donations Liaison Office. Donating Internet Access We can always use new mirror sites for FTP, WWW or cvsup. If you would like to be such a mirror, please see the Mirroring FreeBSD article for more information.
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/article.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/article.sgml index c22f3e73a9..70886f2279 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/article.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/article.sgml @@ -1,721 +1,723 @@ %man; %authors; %teams; %mailing-lists; %freebsd; %trademarks; + +%urls; %contrib.ent; ]>
Contributors to FreeBSD $FreeBSD$ &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.cvsup; &tm-attrib.sun; &tm-attrib.general; This article lists individuals and organizations who have made a contribution to FreeBSD. Donors Gallery The FreeBSD Project is indebted to the following donors and would like to publicly thank them here! Contributors to the central server project: The following individuals and businesses made it possible for the FreeBSD Project to build a new central server machine, which has replaced freefall.FreeBSD.org at one point, by donating the following items: &a.mbarkah; and his employer, Hemisphere Online, donated a Pentium Pro (P6) 200MHz CPU ASA Computers donated a Tyan 1662 motherboard. Joe McGuckin joe@via.net of ViaNet Communications donated a Kingston ethernet controller. Jack O'Neill jack@diamond.xtalwind.net donated an NCR 53C875 SCSI controller card. Ulf Zimmermann ulf@Alameda.net of Alameda Networks donated 128MB of memory, a 4 Gb disk drive and the case. Direct funding: The following individuals and businesses have generously contributed direct funding to the project: Annelise Anderson ANDRSN@HOOVER.STANFORD.EDU &a.dillon; Blue Mountain Arts Epilogue Technology Corporation &a.sef; Global Technology Associates, Inc Don Scott Wilde Gianmarco Giovannelli gmarco@masternet.it Josef C. Grosch joeg@truenorth.org Robert T. Morris &a.chuckr; Kenneth P. Stox ken@stox.sa.enteract.com of Imaginary Landscape, LLC. Dmitry S. Kohmanyuk dk@dog.farm.org Laser5 of Japan (a portion of the profits from sales of their various FreeBSD CDROMs). Fuki Shuppan Publishing Co. donated a portion of their profits from Hajimete no FreeBSD (FreeBSD, Getting started) to the FreeBSD and XFree86 projects. ASCII Corp. donated a portion of their profits from several FreeBSD-related books to the FreeBSD project. Yokogawa Electric Corp has generously donated significant funding to the FreeBSD project. BuffNET Pacific Solutions Siemens AG via Andre Albsmeier andre.albsmeier@mchp.siemens.de Chris Silva ras@interaccess.com Hardware contributors: The following individuals and businesses have generously contributed hardware for testing and device driver development/support: BSDi for providing the Pentium P5-90 and 486/DX2-66 EISA/VL systems that are being used for our development work, to say nothing of the network access and other donations of hardware resources. Compaq has donated a variety of Alpha systems to the FreeBSD Project. Among the many generous donations are 4 AlphaStation DS10s, an AlphaServer DS20, AlphaServer 2100s, an AlphaServer 4100, 8 500Mhz Personal Workstations, 4 433Mhz Personal Workstations, and more! These machines are used for release engineering, package building, SMP development, and general development on the Alpha architecture. TRW Financial Systems, Inc. provided 130 PCs, three 68 GB file servers, twelve Ethernets, two routers and an ATM switch for debugging the diskless code. Dermot McDonnell donated the Toshiba XM3401B CDROM drive currently used in freefall. Chuck Robey chuckr@glue.umd.edu contributed his floppy tape streamer for experimental work. Larry Altneu larry@ALR.COM, and &a.wilko;, provided Wangtek and Archive QIC-02 tape drives in order to improve the wt driver. Ernst Winter ewinter@lobo.muc.de contributed a 2.88 MB floppy drive to the project. This will hopefully increase the pressure for rewriting the floppy disk driver. Tekram Technologies sent one each of their DC-390, DC-390U and DC-390F FAST and ULTRA SCSI host adapter cards for regression testing of the NCR and AMD drivers with their cards. They are also to be applauded for making driver sources for free operating systems available from their FTP server . Larry M. Augustin contributed not only a Symbios Sym8751S SCSI card, but also a set of data books, including one about the forthcoming Sym53c895 chip with Ultra-2 and LVD support, and the latest programming manual with information on how to safely use the advanced features of the latest Symbios SCSI chips. Thanks a lot! Christoph Kukulies kuku@FreeBSD.org donated an FX120 12 speed Mitsumi CDROM drive for IDE CDROM driver development. Mike Tancsa mike@sentex.ca donated four various ATM PCI cards in order to help increase support of these cards as well as help support the development effort of the netatm ATM stack. Special contributors: BSDi (formerly Walnut Creek CDROM) has donated almost more than we can say (see the 'About the FreeBSD Project' section of the FreeBSD Handbook for more details). In particular, we would like to thank them for the original hardware used for freefall.FreeBSD.org, our primary development machine, and for thud.FreeBSD.org, a testing and build box. We are also indebted to them for funding various contributors over the years and providing us with unrestricted use of their T1 connection to the Internet. The interface business GmbH, Dresden has been patiently supporting &a.joerg; who has often preferred FreeBSD work over paid work, and used to fall back to their (quite expensive) EUnet Internet connection whenever his private connection became too slow or flaky to work with it... Berkeley Software Design, Inc. has contributed their DOS emulator code to the remaining BSD world, which is used in the doscmd command. The FreeBSD Core Team The FreeBSD core team constitutes the project's Board of Directors, responsible for deciding the project's overall goals and direction as well as managing specific areas of the FreeBSD project landscape. (in alphabetical order by last name): &contrib.core; Other &os; Teams The &os; project delegates certain individuals to work on various teams according to project needs. The following list contains the current information on those individuals and their designated areas: &contrib.staff; The FreeBSD Developers These are the people who have commit privileges and do the engineering work on the FreeBSD source tree. All core team members are also developers. (in alphabetical order by last name): &contrib.committers; The FreeBSD Documentation Project - The FreeBSD + The FreeBSD Documentation Project is responsible for a number of different services, each service being run by an individual and his deputies (if any): Documentation Project Architect &a.nik; Handbook Editor &a.doc; FAQ Editor &a.doc; News Editor &a.jim; In the Press Editor &a.jkoshy; FreeBSD Really-Quick NewsLetter Editor Chris Coleman chrisc@vmunix.com Gallery Editor &a.phantom; Commercial Gallery Editor &a.josef; User Groups Editor &a.grog; FreeBSD &java; Project &a.patrick; LinuxDoc to DocBook conversion &a.nik; Who is Responsible for What Documentation + url="&url.main;/docproj/index.html">Documentation Project Manager &a.nik; CVSup Mirror Site Coordinator &a.cvsup-master; which includes: &a.kuriyama; (responsible), &a.jdp; (advisor) FTP/WWW Mirror Site Coordinator &a.mirror-admin; which includes: &a.kuriyama;, &a.kensmith; Localization &a.ache; Postmaster &a.dhw;, &a.jmb; Release Coordination &a.re; headed by &a.murray; Public Relations & Corporate Liaison Seat open - Security + Security Officers &a.security-officer; headed by &a.nectar; - Source + Source Repository Managers Principal: &a.peter; Assistants: &a.markm;, &a.joe; Website Management &a.www; - Ports + Ports Manager &a.portmgr; which includes: &a.knu;, &a.kris;, &a.lioux;, &a.marcus;, &a.sobomax;, &a.steve;, &a.will;, &a.erwin; (secretary) Standards &a.wollman; XFree86 Project, Inc. Liaison &a.rich; - GNATS + GNATS Administrator &a.ceri; Bugmeister &a.ceri; - Donations Liaison Office + Donations Liaison Office &a.donations; which includes: &a.mwlucas &a.nsayer &a.obrien &a.rwatson &a.trhodes Core Team Alumni core team The following people were members of the FreeBSD core team during the periods indicated. We thank them for their past efforts in the service of the FreeBSD project. In rough chronological order: &contrib.corealumni; Development Team Alumni development team The following people were members of the FreeBSD development team during the periods indicated. We thank them for their past efforts in the service of the FreeBSD project. In rough chronological order: &contrib.develalumni; Derived Software Contributors This software was originally derived from William F. Jolitz's 386BSD release 0.1, though almost none of the original 386BSD specific code remains. This software has been essentially re-implemented from the 4.4BSD-Lite release provided by the Computer Science Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley and associated academic contributors. There are also portions of NetBSD and OpenBSD that have been integrated into FreeBSD as well, and we would therefore like to thank all the contributors to NetBSD and OpenBSD for their work. Additional FreeBSD Contributors (in alphabetical order by first name): &contrib.additional; 386BSD Patch Kit Patch Contributors (in alphabetical order by first name): &contrib.386bsd;
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/explaining-bsd/article.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/explaining-bsd/article.sgml index f578f16562..b8f3438f73 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/explaining-bsd/article.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/explaining-bsd/article.sgml @@ -1,565 +1,567 @@ %man; %freebsd; %trademarks; + +%urls; ]>
Explaining BSD Greg Lehey
grog@FreeBSD.org
 &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.apple; &tm-attrib.linux; &tm-attrib.opengroup; &tm-attrib.sun; &tm-attrib.xfree86; &tm-attrib.general; In the open source world, the word Linux is almost synonymous with Operating System, but it is not the only open source &unix; operating system. According to the Internet Operating System Counter, as of April 1999 31.3% of the world's network connected machines run Linux. 14.6% run BSD &unix;. Some of the world's largest web operations, such as Yahoo!, run BSD. The world's busiest FTP server, ftp.cdrom.com, uses BSD to transfer 1.4 TB of data a day. Clearly this is not a niche market: BSD is a well-kept secret. So what is the secret? Why is BSD not better known? This white paper addresses these and other questions. Throughout this paper, differences between BSD and Linux will be noted like this. What is BSD? BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution. It is the name of distributions of source code from the University of California, Berkeley, which were originally extensions to AT&T's Research &unix; operating system. Several open source operating system projects are based on a release of this source code known as 4.4BSD-Lite. In addition, they comprise a number of packages from other Open Source projects, including notably the GNU project. The overall operating system comprises: The BSD kernel, which handles process scheduling, memory management, symmetric multi-processing (SMP), device drivers, etc. Unlike the Linux kernel, there are several different BSD kernels with differing capabilities. The C library, the base API for the system. The BSD C library is based on code from Berkeley, not the GNU project. Utilities such as shells, file utilities, compilers and linkers. Some of the utilities are derived from the GNU project, others are not. The X Window system, which handles graphical display. The X Window system used in most versions of BSD is maintained by a separate project, the &xfree86; project. This is the same code as Linux uses. BSD does not normally specify a graphical desktop such as GNOME or KDE, though these are available. Many other programs and utilities. What, a real &unix;? The BSD operating systems are not clones, but open source derivatives of AT&T's Research &unix; operating system, which is also the ancestor of the modern &unix; System V. This may surprise you. How could that happen when AT&T has never released its code as open source? It is true that AT&T &unix; is not open source, and in a copyright sense BSD is very definitely not &unix;, but on the other hand, AT&T has imported sources from other projects, noticeably the Computer Sciences Research Group of the University of California in Berkeley, CA. Starting in 1976, the CSRG started releasing tapes of their software, calling them Berkeley Software Distribution or BSD. Initial BSD releases consisted mainly of user programs, but that changed dramatically when the CSRG landed a contract with the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to upgrade the communications protocols on their network, ARPANET. The new protocols were known as the Internet Protocols, later TCP/IP after the most important protocols. The first widely distributed implementation was part of 4.2BSD, in 1982. In the course of the 1980s, a number of new workstation companies sprang up. Many preferred to license &unix; rather than developing operating systems for themselves. In particular, Sun Microsystems licensed &unix; and implemented a version of 4.2BSD, which they called &sunos;. When AT&T themselves were allowed to sell &unix; commercially, they started with a somewhat bare-bones implementation called System III, to be quickly followed by System V. The System V code base did not include networking, so all implementations included additional software from the BSD, including the TCP/IP software, but also utilities such as the csh shell and the vi editor. Collectively, these enhancements were known as the Berkeley Extensions. The BSD tapes contained AT&T source code and thus required a &unix; source license. By 1990, the CSRG's funding was running out, and it faced closure. Some members of the group decided to release the BSD code, which was Open Source, without the AT&T proprietary code. This finally happened with the Networking Tape 2, usually known as Net/2. Net/2 was not a complete operating system: about 20% of the kernel code was missing. One of the CSRG members, William F. Jolitz, wrote the remaining code and released it in early 1992 as 386BSD. At the same time, another group of ex-CSRG members formed a commercial company called Berkeley Software Design Inc. and released a beta version of an operating system called BSD/386, which was based on the same sources. The name of the operating system has since changed to BSD/OS. 386BSD never became a stable operating system. Instead, two other projects split off from it in 1993: NetBSD and - FreeBSD. The two projects + FreeBSD. The two projects originally diverged due to differences in patience waiting for improvements to 386BSD: the NetBSD people started early in the year, and the first version of FreeBSD was not ready until the end of the year. In the meantime, the code base had diverged sufficiently to make it difficult to merge. In addition, the projects had different aims, as we will see below. In 1996, a further project, OpenBSD, split off from NetBSD. Why is BSD not better known? For a number of reasons, BSD is relatively unknown: The BSD developers are often more interested in polishing their code than marketing it. Much of Linux's popularity is due to factors external to the Linux projects, such as the press, and to companies formed to provide Linux services. Until recently, the open source BSDs had no such proponents. BSD developers tend to be more experienced than Linux developers, and have less interest in making the system easy to use. Newcomers tend to feel more comfortable with Linux. In 1992, AT&T sued BSDI, the vendor of BSD/386, alleging that the product contained AT&T-copyrighted code. The case was settled out of court in 1994, but the spectre of the litigation continues to haunt people. As recently as March 2000 an article published on the web claimed that the court case had been recently settled. One detail that the lawsuit did clarify is the naming: in the 1980s, BSD was known as BSD &unix;. With the elimination of the last vestige of AT&T code from BSD, it also lost the right to the name &unix;. Thus you will see references in book titles to the 4.3BSD &unix; operating system and the 4.4BSD operating system. There is a perception that the BSD projects are fragmented and belligerent. The Wall Street Journal spoke of balkanization of the BSD projects. Like the law suit, this perception bases mainly on ancient history. Comparing BSD and Linux So what is really the difference between, say, Debian Linux and FreeBSD? For the average user, the difference is surprisingly small: Both are &unix; like operating systems. Both are developed by non-commercial projects (this does not apply to many other Linux distributions, of course). In the following section, we will look at BSD and compare it to Linux. The description applies most closely to FreeBSD, which accounts for an estimated 80% of the BSD installations, but the differences from NetBSD and OpenBSD are small. Who owns BSD? No one person or corporation owns BSD. It is created and distributed by a community of highly technical and committed contributors all over the world. Some of the components of BSD are Open Source projects managed by a different project maintainer. How is BSD developed and updated? The BSD kernels are developed and updated following the Open Source development model. Each project maintains a publicly accessible source tree under the Concurrent Versions System (CVS), which contains all source files for the project, including documentation and other incidental files. CVS allows users to check out (in other words, to extract a copy of) any desired version of the system. A large number of developers worldwide contribute to improvements to BSD. They are divided into three kinds: Contributors write code or documentation. They are not permitted to commit (add code) directly to the source tree. In order for their code to be included in the system, it must be reviewed and checked in by a registered developer, known as a committer. Committers are developers with write access to the source tree. In order to become a committer, an individual must show ability in the area in which he is active. It is at the individual committer's discretion whether he should obtain authority before committing changes to the source tree. In general, an experienced committer may make changes which are obviously correct without obtaining consensus. For example, a documentation project committer may correct typographical or grammatical errors without review. On the other hand, developers making far-reaching or complicated changes are expected to submit their changes for review before committing them. In extreme cases, a core team member with a function such as Principal Architect may order that changes be removed from the tree, a process known as backing out. All committers receive mail describing each individual commit, so it is not possible to commit secretly. The Core team. FreeBSD and NetBSD each have a core team which manages the project. The core teams developed in the course of the projects, and their role is not always well-defined. It is not necessary to be a developer in order to be a core team member, though it is normal. The rules for the core team vary from one project to the other, but in general they have more say in the direction of the project than non-core team members have. This arrangement differs from Linux in a number of ways: No one person controls the content of the system. In practice, this difference is overrated, since the Chief Architect can require that code be backed out, and even in the Linux project several people are permitted to make changes. On the other hand, there is a central repository, a single place where you can find the entire operating system sources, including all older versions. BSD projects maintain the entire Operating System, not only the kernel. This distinction is only marginally useful: neither BSD nor Linux is useful without applications. The applications used under BSD are frequently the same as the applications used under Linux. As a result of the formalized maintenance of a single CVS source tree, BSD development is clear, and it is possible to access any version of the system by release number or by date. CVS also allows incremental updates to the system: for example, the FreeBSD repository is updated about 100 times a day. Most of these changes are small. BSD releases Each BSD project provides the system in three different releases. As with Linux, releases are assigned a number such as 1.4.1 or 3.5. In addition, the version number has a suffix indicating its purpose: The development version of the system is called CURRENT. FreeBSD assigns a number to CURRENT, for example FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT. NetBSD uses a slightly different naming scheme and appends a single-letter suffix which indicates changes in the internal interfaces, for example NetBSD 1.4.3G. OpenBSD does not assign a number ("OpenBSD-current"). All new development on the system goes into this branch. At regular intervals, between two and four times a year, the projects bring out a RELEASE version of the system, which is available on CD-ROM and for free download from FTP sites, for example OpenBSD 2.6-RELEASE or NetBSD 1.4-RELEASE. The RELEASE version is intended for end users and is the normal version of the system. NetBSD also provides patch releases with a third digit, for example NetBSD 1.4.2. As bugs are found in a RELEASE version, they are fixed, and the fixes are added to the CVS tree. In FreeBSD, the resultant version is called the STABLE version, while in NetBSD and OpenBSD it continues to be called the RELEASE version. Smaller new features can also be added to this branch after a period of test in the CURRENT branch. By contrast, Linux maintains two separate code trees: the stable version and the development version. Stable versions have an even minor version number, such as 2.0, 2.2 or 2.4. Development versions have an odd minor version number, such as 2.1, 2.3 or 2.5. In each case, the number is followed by a further number designating the exact release. In addition, each vendor adds their own userland programs and utilities, so the name of the distribution is also important. Each distribution vendor also assigns version numbers to the distribution, so a complete description might be something like TurboLinux 6.0 with kernel 2.2.14 What versions of BSD are available? In contrast to the numerous Linux distributions, there are only three open source BSDs. Each BSD project maintains its own source tree and its own kernel. In practice, though, there appear to be fewer divergences between the userland code of the projects than there is in Linux. It is difficult to categorize the goals of each project: the differences are very subjective. Basically, FreeBSD aims for high performance and ease of use by end users, and is a favourite of web content providers. It runs on PCs and Compaq's Alpha processors. The FreeBSD project has significantly more users than the other projects. NetBSD aims for maximum portability: of course it runs NetBSD. It runs on machines from palmtops to large servers, and has even been used on NASA space missions. It is a particularly good choice for running on old non-Intel hardware. OpenBSD aims for security and code purity: it uses a combination of the open source concept and rigorous code reviews to create a system which is demonstrably correct, making it the choice of security-conscious organizations such as banks, stock exchanges and US Government departments. Like NetBSD, it runs on a number of platforms. There are also two additional BSD &unix; operating systems which are not open source, BSD/OS and Apple's &macos; X: BSD/OS is the oldest of the 4.4BSD derivatives. It is not open source, though source code licenses are available at relatively low cost. It resembles FreeBSD in many ways. &macos; X is the latest version of the operating system for Apple Computer Inc.'s &macintosh; line. The BSD core of this operating system, Darwin, is available as a fully functional open source operating system for x86 and PPC computers. The Aqua/Quartz graphics system and many other proprietary aspects of &macos; X remain closed-source, however. Several Darwin developers are also FreeBSD committers, and vice-versa. How does the BSD license differ from the GNU Public license? Linux is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is designed to eliminate closed source software. In particular, any derivative work of a product released under the GPL must also be supplied with source code if requested. By contrast, the BSD license is less restrictive: binary-only distributions are allowed. This is particularly attractive for embedded applications. What else should I know? Since fewer applications are available for BSD than Linux, the BSD developers created a Linux compatibility package, which allows Linux programs to run under BSD. The package includes both kernel modifications, in order to correctly perform Linux system calls, and Linux compatibility files such as the C library. There is no noticeable difference in execution speed between a Linux application running on a Linux machine and a Linux application running on a BSD machine of the same speed. The all from one supplier nature of BSD means that upgrades are much easier to handle than is frequently the case with Linux. BSD handles library version upgrades by providing compatibility modules for earlier library versions, so it is possible to run binaries which are several years old with no problems. Which should I use, BSD or Linux? What does this all mean in practice? Who should use BSD, who should use Linux? This is a very difficult question to answer. Here are some guidelines: If it ain't broke, don't fix it: If you already use an open source operating system, and you are happy with it, there is probably no good reason to change. BSD systems, in particular FreeBSD, can have notably higher performance than Linux. But this is not across the board. In many cases, there is little or no difference in performance. In some cases, Linux may perform better than FreeBSD. In general, BSD systems have a better reputation for reliability, mainly as a result of the more mature code base. The BSD license may be more attractive than the GPL. BSD can execute Linux code, while Linux can not execute BSD code. As a result, more software is available for BSD than for Linux. Who provides support, service, and training for BSD? BSDi have always supported BSD/OS, and they have recently announced support contracts for FreeBSD. In addition, each of the projects has a list of consultants for hire: - FreeBSD, + FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/new-users/article.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/new-users/article.sgml index 94acdb80a8..d6c6f0664d 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/new-users/article.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/new-users/article.sgml @@ -1,1065 +1,1067 @@ %man; %mailing-lists; %freebsd; %trademarks; + +%urls; ]>
For People New to Both FreeBSD and &unix; Annelise Anderson
andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu
 August 15, 1997 &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.ibm; &tm-attrib.microsoft; &tm-attrib.netscape; &tm-attrib.opengroup; &tm-attrib.general; Congratulations on installing FreeBSD! This introduction is for people new to both FreeBSD and &unix;—so it starts with basics. It assumes you are using version 2.0.5 or later of &os; as distributed by &os;.org, your system (for now) has a single user (you)—and you are probably pretty good with DOS/&windows; or &os2;. Logging in and Getting Out Log in (when you see login:) as a user you created during installation or as root. (Your FreeBSD installation will already have an account for root; who can go anywhere and do anything, including deleting essential files, so be careful!) The symbols &prompt.user; and &prompt.root; in the following stand for the prompt (yours may be different), with &prompt.user; indicating an ordinary user and &prompt.root; indicating root. To log out (and get a new login: prompt) type &prompt.root; exit as often as necessary. Yes, press enter after commands, and remember that &unix; is case-sensitive—exit, not EXIT. To shut down the machine type &prompt.root; /sbin/shutdown -h now Or to reboot type &prompt.root; /sbin/shutdown -r now or &prompt.root; /sbin/reboot You can also reboot with CtrlAltDelete. Give it a little time to do its work. This is equivalent to /sbin/reboot in recent releases of FreeBSD and is much, much better than hitting the reset button. You do not want to have to reinstall this thing, do you? Adding A User with Root Privileges If you did not create any users when you installed the system and are thus logged in as root, you should probably create a user now with &prompt.root; adduser The first time you use adduser, it might ask for some defaults to save. You might want to make the default shell &man.csh.1; instead of &man.sh.1;, if it suggests sh as the default. Otherwise just press enter to accept each default. These defaults are saved in /etc/adduser.conf, an editable file. Suppose you create a user jack with full name Jack Benimble. Give jack a password if security (even kids around who might pound on the keyboard) is an issue. When it asks you if you want to invite jack into other groups, type wheel Login group is ``jack''. Invite jack into other groups: wheel This will make it possible to log in as jack and use the &man.su.1; command to become root. Then you will not get scolded any more for logging in as root. You can quit adduser any time by typing CtrlC, and at the end you will have a chance to approve your new user or simply type n for no. You might want to create a second new user so that when you edit jack's login files, you will have a hot spare in case something goes wrong. Once you have done this, use exit to get back to a login prompt and log in as jack. In general, it is a good idea to do as much work as possible as an ordinary user who does not have the power—and risk—of root. If you already created a user and you want the user to be able to su to root, you can log in as root and edit the file /etc/group, adding jack to the first line (the group wheel). But first you need to practice &man.vi.1;, the text editor—or use the simpler text editor, &man.ee.1;, installed on recent versions of FreeBSD. To delete a user, use the rmuser command. Looking Around Logged in as an ordinary user, look around and try out some commands that will access the sources of help and information within FreeBSD. Here are some commands and what they do: id Tells you who you are! pwd Shows you where you are—the current working directory. ls Lists the files in the current directory. ls Lists the files in the current directory with a * after executables, a / after directories, and an @ after symbolic links. ls Lists the files in long format—size, date, permissions. ls Lists hidden dot files with the others. If you are root, the dot files show up without the switch. cd Changes directories. cd .. backs up one level; note the space after cd. cd /usr/local goes there. cd ~ goes to the home directory of the person logged in—e.g., /usr/home/jack. Try cd /cdrom, and then ls, to find out if your CDROM is mounted and working. view filename Lets you look at a file (named filename) without changing it. Try view /etc/fstab. Type :q to quit. cat filename Displays filename on screen. If it is too long and you can see only the end of it, press ScrollLock and use the up-arrow to move backward; you can use ScrollLock with manual pages too. Press ScrollLock again to quit scrolling. You might want to try cat on some of the dot files in your home directory—cat .cshrc, cat .login, cat .profile. You will notice aliases in .cshrc for some of the ls commands (they are very convenient). You can create other aliases by editing .cshrc. You can make these aliases available to all users on the system by putting them in the system-wide csh configuration file, /etc/csh.cshrc. Getting Help and Information Here are some useful sources of help. Text stands for something of your choice that you type in—usually a command or filename. apropos text Everything containing string text in the whatis database. man text The manual page for text. The major source of documentation for &unix; systems. man ls will tell you all the ways to use the ls command. Press Enter to move through text, CtrlB to go back a page, CtrlF to go forward, q or CtrlC to quit. which text Tells you where in the user's path the command text is found. locate text All the paths where the string text is found. whatis text Tells you what the command text does and its manual page. Typing whatis * will tell you about all the binaries in the current directory. whereis text Finds the file text, giving its full path. You might want to try using whatis on some common useful commands like cat, more, grep, mv, find, tar, chmod, chown, date, and script. more lets you read a page at a time as it does in DOS, e.g., ls -l | more or more filename. The * works as a wildcard—e.g., ls w* will show you files beginning with w. Are some of these not working very well? Both &man.locate.1; and &man.whatis.1; depend on a database that is rebuilt weekly. If your machine is not going to be left on over the weekend (and running FreeBSD), you might want to run the commands for daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance now and then. Run them as root and, for now, give each one time to finish before you start the next one. &prompt.root; periodic daily output omitted &prompt.root; periodic weekly output omitted &prompt.root; periodic monthly output omitted If you get tired of waiting, press AltF2 to get another virtual console, and log in again. After all, it is a multi-user, multi-tasking system. Nevertheless these commands will probably flash messages on your screen while they are running; you can type clear at the prompt to clear the screen. Once they have run, you might want to look at /var/mail/root and /var/log/messages. Running such commands is part of system administration—and as a single user of a &unix; system, you are your own system administrator. Virtually everything you need to be root to do is system administration. Such responsibilities are not covered very well even in those big fat books on &unix;, which seem to devote a lot of space to pulling down menus in windows managers. You might want to get one of the two leading books on systems administration, either Evi Nemeth et.al.'s UNIX System Administration Handbook (Prentice-Hall, 1995, ISBN 0-13-15051-7)—the second edition with the red cover; or Æleen Frisch's Essential System Administration (O'Reilly & Associates, 2002, ISBN 0-596-00343-9). I used Nemeth. Editing Text To configure your system, you need to edit text files. Most of them will be in the /etc directory; and you will need to su to root to be able to change them. You can use the easy ee, but in the long run the text editor vi is worth learning. There is an excellent tutorial on vi in /usr/src/contrib/nvi/docs/tutorial, if you have the system sources installed. Before you edit a file, you should probably back it up. Suppose you want to edit /etc/rc.conf. You could just use cd /etc to get to the /etc directory and do: &prompt.root; cp rc.conf rc.conf.orig This would copy rc.conf to rc.conf.orig, and you could later copy rc.conf.orig to rc.conf to recover the original. But even better would be moving (renaming) and then copying back: &prompt.root; mv rc.conf rc.conf.orig &prompt.root; cp rc.conf.orig rc.conf because the mv command preserves the original date and owner of the file. You can now edit rc.conf. If you want the original back, you would then mv rc.conf rc.conf.myedit (assuming you want to preserve your edited version) and then &prompt.root; mv rc.conf.orig rc.conf to put things back the way they were. To edit a file, type &prompt.root; vi filename Move through the text with the arrow keys. Esc (the escape key) puts vi in command mode. Here are some commands: x delete letter the cursor is on dd delete the entire line (even if it wraps on the screen) i insert text at the cursor a insert text after the cursor Once you type i or a, you can enter text. Esc puts you back in command mode where you can type :w to write your changes to disk and continue editing :wq to write and quit :q! to quit without saving changes /text to move the cursor to text; /Enter (the enter key) to find the next instance of text. G to go to the end of the file nG to go to line n in the file, where n is a number CtrlL to redraw the screen Ctrlb and Ctrlf go back and forward a screen, as they do with more and view. Practice with vi in your home directory by creating a new file with vi filename and adding and deleting text, saving the file, and calling it up again. vi delivers some surprises because it is really quite complex, and sometimes you will inadvertently issue a command that will do something you do not expect. (Some people actually like vi—it is more powerful than DOS EDIT—find out about the :r command.) Use Esc one or more times to be sure you are in command mode and proceed from there when it gives you trouble, save often with :w, and use :q! to get out and start over (from your last :w) when you need to. Now you can cd to /etc, su to root, use vi to edit the file /etc/group, and add a user to wheel so the user has root privileges. Just add a comma and the user's login name to the end of the first line in the file, press Esc, and use :wq to write the file to disk and quit. Instantly effective. (You did not put a space after the comma, did you?) Printing Files from DOS At this point you probably do not have the printer working, so here is a way to create a file from a manual page, move it to a floppy, and then print it from DOS. Suppose you want to read carefully about changing permissions on files (pretty important). You can use man chmod to read about it. The command &prompt.user; man chmod | col -b > chmod.txt will remove formatting codes and send the manual page to the chmod.txt file instead of showing it on your screen. Now put a dos-formatted diskette in your floppy drive a, su to root, and type &prompt.root; /sbin/mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt to mount the floppy drive on /mnt. Now (you no longer need to be root, and you can type exit to get back to being user jack) you can go to the directory where you created chmod.txt and copy the file to the floppy with: &prompt.user; cp chmod.txt /mnt and use ls /mnt to get a directory listing of /mnt, which should show the file chmod.txt. You might especially want to make a file from /sbin/dmesg by typing &prompt.user; /sbin/dmesg > dmesg.txt and copying dmesg.txt to the floppy. /sbin/dmesg is the boot log record, and it is useful to understand it because it shows what FreeBSD found when it booted up. If you ask questions on the &a.questions; or on a USENET group—like FreeBSD is not finding my tape drive, what do I do?—people will want to know what dmesg has to say. You can now unmount the floppy drive (as root) to get the disk out with &prompt.root; /sbin/umount /mnt and reboot to go to DOS. Copy these files to a DOS directory, call them up with DOS EDIT, &windows; Notepad or Wordpad, or a word processor, make a minor change so the file has to be saved, and print as you normally would from DOS or Windows. Hope it works! manual pages come out best if printed with the DOS print command. (Copying files from FreeBSD to a mounted DOS partition is in some cases still a little risky.) Getting the printer printing from FreeBSD involves creating an appropriate entry in /etc/printcap and creating a matching spool directory in /var/spool/output. If your printer is on lpt0 (what DOS calls LPT1), you may only need to go to /var/spool/output and (as root) create the directory lpd by typing: mkdir lpd, if it does not already exist. Then the printer should respond if it is turned on when the system is booted, and lp or lpr should send a file to the printer. Whether or not the file actually prints depends on configuring it, which is covered in the FreeBSD handbook. Other Useful Commands df shows file space and mounted systems. ps aux shows processes running. ps ax is a narrower form. rm filename remove filename. rm -R dir removes a directory dir and all subdirectories—careful! ls -R lists files in the current directory and all subdirectories; I used a variant, ls -AFR > where.txt, to get a list of all the files in / and (separately) /usr before I found better ways to find files. passwd to change user's password (or root's password) man hier manual page on the &unix; filesystem Use find to locate filename in /usr or any of its subdirectories with &prompt.user; find /usr -name "filename" You can use * as a wildcard in "filename" (which should be in quotes). If you tell find to search in / instead of /usr it will look for the file(s) on all mounted filesystems, including the CDROM and the DOS partition. An excellent book that explains &unix; commands and utilities is Abrahams & Larson, Unix for the Impatient (2nd ed., Addison-Wesley, 1996). There is also a lot of &unix; information on the Internet. Next Steps You should now have the tools you need to get around and edit files, so you can get everything up and running. There is a great deal of information in the FreeBSD handbook (which is probably on your hard drive) and FreeBSD's web site. A + URL="&url.main;/index.html">FreeBSD's web site. A wide variety of packages and ports are on the CDROM as well as the web site. The handbook tells you more about how to use them (get the package if it exists, with pkg_add /cdrom/packages/All/packagename, where packagename is the filename of the package). The CDROM has lists of the packages and ports with brief descriptions in cdrom/packages/index, cdrom/packages/index.txt, and cdrom/ports/index, with fuller descriptions in /cdrom/ports/*/*/pkg/DESCR, where the *s represent subdirectories of kinds of programs and program names respectively. If you find the handbook too sophisticated (what with lndir and all) on installing ports from the CDROM, here is what usually works: Find the port you want, say kermit. There will be a directory for it on the CDROM. Copy the subdirectory to /usr/local (a good place for software you add that should be available to all users) with: &prompt.root; cp -R /cdrom/ports/comm/kermit /usr/local This should result in a /usr/local/kermit subdirectory that has all the files that the kermit subdirectory on the CDROM has. Next, create the directory /usr/ports/distfiles if it does not already exist using mkdir. Now check /cdrom/ports/distfiles for a file with a name that indicates it is the port you want. Copy that file to /usr/ports/distfiles; in recent versions you can skip this step, as FreeBSD will do it for you. In the case of kermit, there is no distfile. Then cd to the subdirectory of /usr/local/kermit that has the file Makefile. Type &prompt.root; make all install During this process the port will FTP to get any compressed files it needs that it did not find on the CDROM or in /usr/ports/distfiles. If you do not have your network running yet and there was no file for the port in /cdrom/ports/distfiles, you will have to get the distfile using another machine and copy it to /usr/ports/distfiles from a floppy or your DOS partition. Read Makefile (with cat or more or view) to find out where to go (the master distribution site) to get the file and what its name is. Its name will be truncated when downloaded to DOS, and after you get it into /usr/ports/distfiles you will have to rename it (with the mv command) to its original name so it can be found. (Use binary file transfers!) Then go back to /usr/local/kermit, find the directory with Makefile, and type make all install. The other thing that happens when installing ports or packages is that some other program is needed. If the installation stops with a message can't find unzip or whatever, you might need to install the package or port for unzip before you continue. Once it is installed type rehash to make FreeBSD reread the files in the path so it knows what is there. (If you get a lot of path not found messages when you use whereis or which, you might want to make additions to the list of directories in the path statement in .cshrc in your home directory. The path statement in &unix; does the same kind of work it does in DOS, except the current directory is not (by default) in the path for security reasons; if the command you want is in the directory you are in, you need to type ./ before the command to make it work; no space after the slash.) You might want to get the most recent version of &netscape; from their FTP site. (&netscape; requires the X Window System.) There is now a FreeBSD version, so look around carefully. Just use gunzip filename and tar xvf filename on it, move the binary to /usr/local/bin or some other place binaries are kept, rehash, and then put the following lines in .cshrc in each user's home directory or (easier) in /etc/csh.cshrc, the system-wide csh start-up file: setenv XKEYSYMDB /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB setenv XNLSPATH /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/nls This assumes that the file XKeysymDB and the directory nls are in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11; if they are not, find them and put them there. If you originally got &netscape; as a port using the CDROM (or FTP), do not replace /usr/local/bin/netscape with the new netscape binary; this is just a shell script that sets up the environment variables for you. Instead rename the new binary to netscape.bin and replace the old binary, which is /usr/local/netscape/netscape. Your Working Environment Your shell is the most important part of your working environment. In DOS, the usual shell is command.com. The shell is what interprets the commands you type on the command line, and thus communicates with the rest of the operating system. You can also write shell scripts, which are like DOS batch files: a series of commands to be run without your intervention. Two shells come installed with FreeBSD: csh and sh. csh is good for command-line work, but scripts should be written with sh (or bash). You can find out what shell you have by typing echo $SHELL. The csh shell is okay, but tcsh does everything csh does and more. It allows you to recall commands with the arrow keys and edit them. It has tab-key completion of filenames (csh uses the Esc key), and it lets you switch to the directory you were last in with cd -. It is also much easier to alter your prompt with tcsh. It makes life a lot easier. Here are the three steps for installing a new shell: Install the shell as a port or a package, just as you would any other port or package. Use rehash and which tcsh (assuming you are installing tcsh) to make sure it got installed. As root, edit /etc/shells, adding a line in the file for the new shell, in this case /usr/local/bin/tcsh, and save the file. (Some ports may do this for you.) Use the chsh command to change your shell to tcsh permanently, or type tcsh at the prompt to change your shell without logging in again. It can be dangerous to change root's shell to something other than sh or csh on early versions of FreeBSD and many other versions of &unix;; you may not have a working shell when the system puts you into single user mode. The solution is to use su -m to become root, which will give you the tcsh as root, because the shell is part of the environment. You can make this permanent by adding it to your .tcshrc file as an alias with: alias su su -m When tcsh starts up, it will read the /etc/csh.cshrc and /etc/csh.login files, as does csh. It will also read the .login file in your home directory and the .cshrc file as well, unless you provide a .tcshrc file. This you can do by simply copying .cshrc to .tcshrc. Now that you have installed tcsh, you can adjust your prompt. You can find the details in the manual page for tcsh, but here is a line to put in your .tcshrc that will tell you how many commands you have typed, what time it is, and what directory you are in. It also produces a > if you are an ordinary user and a # if you are root, but tsch will do that in any case: set prompt = "%h %t %~ %# " This should go in the same place as the existing set prompt line if there is one, or under "if($?prompt) then" if not. Comment out the old line; you can always switch back to it if you prefer it. Do not forget the spaces and quotes. You can get the .tcshrc reread by typing source .tcshrc. You can get a listing of other environmental variables that have been set by typing env at the prompt. The result will show you your default editor, pager, and terminal type, among possibly many others. A useful command if you log in from a remote location and can not run a program because the terminal is not capable is setenv TERM vt100. Other As root, you can unmount the CDROM with /sbin/umount /cdrom, take it out of the drive, insert another one, and mount it with /sbin/mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0a /cdrom assuming cd0a is the device name for your CDROM drive. The most recent versions of FreeBSD let you mount the CDROM with just /sbin/mount /cdrom. Using the live filesystem—the second of FreeBSD's CDROM disks—is useful if you have got limited space. What is on the live filesystem varies from release to release. You might try playing games from the CDROM. This involves using lndir, which gets installed with the X Window System, to tell the program(s) where to find the necessary files, because they are in the /cdrom file system instead of in /usr and its subdirectories, which is where they are expected to be. Read man lndir. Comments Welcome If you use this guide I would be interested in knowing where it was unclear and what was left out that you think should be included, and if it was helpful. My thanks to Eugene W. Stark, professor of computer science at SUNY-Stony Brook, and John Fieber for helpful comments. Annelise Anderson, andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu
diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/book.sgml index 356ea0ac88..4212efc313 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/book.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/book.sgml @@ -1,213 +1,215 @@ %bookinfo; %man; %freebsd; %chapters; %mac-entities; %authors %mailing-lists; + +%urls; ]> &os; Architecture Handbook The FreeBSD Documentation Project August 2000 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 The FreeBSD Documentation Project &bookinfo.trademarks; &bookinfo.legalnotice; Welcome to the &os; Architecture Handbook. This manual is a work in progress and is the work of many individuals. Many sections do not yet exist and some of those that do exist need to be updated. 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 + from the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. It may also be downloaded in a variety of formats and compression options from the FreeBSD FTP server or one of the numerous mirror sites. Kernel &chap.boot; &chap.locking; &chap.kobj; &chap.jail; &chap.sysinit; &chap.mac; &chap.vm; &chap.smp; * UFS UFS, FFS, Ext2FS, JFS, inodes, buffer cache, labeling, locking, metadata, soft-updates, LFS, portalfs, procfs, vnodes, memory sharing, memory objects, TLBs, caching * AFS AFS, NFS, SANs, etc. * Syscons Syscons, tty, PCVT, serial console, screen savers, etc. * Compatibility Layers * Linux Linux, SVR4, etc. Device Drivers &chap.driverbasics; &chap.isa; &chap.pci; &chap.scsi; &chap.usb; &chap.newbus; &chap.snd; &chap.pccard; Appendices Marshall Kirk McKusick Keith Bostic Michael J Karels John S Quarterman 1996Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 0-201-54979-4 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System 1-2 diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/book.sgml index c80d6d7213..4dccae6990 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/book.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/book.sgml @@ -1,284 +1,286 @@ %bookinfo; %man; %freebsd; %chapters; %authors %mailing-lists; %trademarks; + +%urls; ]> FreeBSD Developers' Handbook The FreeBSD Documentation Project August 2000 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 The FreeBSD Documentation Project &bookinfo.legalnotice; &tm-attrib.freebsd; &tm-attrib.apple; &tm-attrib.ibm; &tm-attrib.ieee; &tm-attrib.intel; &tm-attrib.linux; &tm-attrib.microsoft; &tm-attrib.opengroup; &tm-attrib.sun; &tm-attrib.general; Welcome to the Developers' Handbook. This manual is a work in progress and is the work of many individuals. Many sections do not yet exist and some of those that do exist need to be updated. 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 + from the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. It may also be downloaded in a variety of formats and compression options from the FreeBSD FTP server or one of the numerous mirror sites. Basics &chap.introduction; &chap.tools; &chap.secure; &chap.l10n; &chap.policies; &chap.testing; Interprocess Communication * Signals Signals, pipes, semaphores, message queues, shared memory, ports, sockets, doors &chap.sockets; &chap.ipv6; Kernel &chap.dma; &chap.kerneldebug; * UFS UFS, FFS, Ext2FS, JFS, inodes, buffer cache, labeling, locking, metadata, soft-updates, LFS, portalfs, procfs, vnodes, memory sharing, memory objects, TLBs, caching * AFS AFS, NFS, SANs, etc. * Syscons Syscons, tty, PCVT, serial console, screen savers, etc. * Compatibility Layers * Linux Linux, SVR4, etc. Architectures &chap.x86; * Alpha Explanation of alignment errors, how to fix, how to ignore. Example assembly language code for FreeBSD/alpha. Appendices Dave A Patterson John L Hennessy 1998Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. 1-55860-428-6 Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. Computer Organization and Design The Hardware / Software Interface 1-2 W. Richard Stevens 1993Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. 0-201-56317-7 Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment 1-2 Marshall Kirk McKusick Keith Bostic Michael J Karels John S Quarterman 1996Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 0-201-54979-4 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System 1-2 Aleph One Phrack 49; "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit" Chrispin Cowan Calton Pu Dave Maier StackGuard; Automatic Adaptive Detection and Prevention of Buffer-Overflow Attacks Todd Miller Theo de Raadt strlcpy and strlcat -- consistent, safe string copy and concatenation. diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/tools/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/tools/chapter.sgml index 9a0e79c9c6..223d58c6a9 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/tools/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/tools/chapter.sgml @@ -1,2361 +1,2361 @@ James Raynard Written by Murray Stokely Modifications for the Developer's Handbook by Programming Tools Synopsis This chapter is an introduction to using some of the programming tools supplied with FreeBSD, although much of it will be applicable to many other versions of &unix;. It does not attempt to describe coding in any detail. Most of the chapter assumes little or no previous programming knowledge, although it is hoped that most programmers will find something of value in it. Introduction FreeBSD offers an excellent development environment. Compilers for C, C++, and Fortran and an assembler come with the basic system, not to mention a Perl interpreter and classic &unix; tools such as sed and awk. If that is not enough, there are many more compilers and interpreters in the Ports collection. FreeBSD is very compatible with standards such as &posix; and ANSI C, as well with its own BSD heritage, so it is possible to write applications that will compile and run with little or no modification on a wide range of platforms. However, all this power can be rather overwhelming at first if you have never written programs on a &unix; platform before. This document aims to help you get up and running, without getting too deeply into more advanced topics. The intention is that this document should give you enough of the basics to be able to make some sense of the documentation. Most of the document requires little or no knowledge of programming, although it does assume a basic competence with using &unix; and a willingness to learn! Introduction to Programming A program is a set of instructions that tell the computer to do various things; sometimes the instruction it has to perform depends on what happened when it performed a previous instruction. This section gives an overview of the two main ways in which you can give these instructions, or commands as they are usually called. One way uses an interpreter, the other a compiler. As human languages are too difficult for a computer to understand in an unambiguous way, commands are usually written in one or other languages specially designed for the purpose. Interpreters With an interpreter, the language comes as an environment, where you type in commands at a prompt and the environment executes them for you. For more complicated programs, you can type the commands into a file and get the interpreter to load the file and execute the commands in it. If anything goes wrong, many interpreters will drop you into a debugger to help you track down the problem. The advantage of this is that you can see the results of your commands immediately, and mistakes can be corrected readily. The biggest disadvantage comes when you want to share your programs with someone. They must have the same interpreter, or you must have some way of giving it to them, and they need to understand how to use it. Also users may not appreciate being thrown into a debugger if they press the wrong key! From a performance point of view, interpreters can use up a lot of memory, and generally do not generate code as efficiently as compilers. In my opinion, interpreted languages are the best way to start if you have not done any programming before. This kind of environment is typically found with languages like Lisp, Smalltalk, Perl and Basic. It could also be argued that the &unix; shell (sh, csh) is itself an interpreter, and many people do in fact write shell scripts to help with various housekeeping tasks on their machine. Indeed, part of the original &unix; philosophy was to provide lots of small utility programs that could be linked together in shell scripts to perform useful tasks. Interpreters available with FreeBSD Here is a list of interpreters that are available as FreeBSD packages, with a brief discussion of some of the more popular interpreted languages. To get one of these packages, all you need to do is to click on the hotlink for the package, to download the package and then install the package by running: &prompt.root; pkg_add package name as root. Obviously, you will need to have a fully functional FreeBSD 2.1.0 or later system for the package to work! BASIC Short for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Developed in the 1950s for teaching University students to program and provided with every self-respecting personal computer in the 1980s, BASIC has been the first programming language for many programmers. It is also the foundation for Visual Basic. The Bywater Basic Interpreter and the Phil Cockroft's Basic Interpreter (formerly Rabbit Basic) are available as FreeBSD packages. Lisp A language that was developed in the late 1950s as an alternative to the number-crunching languages that were popular at the time. Instead of being based on numbers, Lisp is based on lists; in fact the name is short for List Processing. Very popular in AI (Artificial Intelligence) circles. Lisp is an extremely powerful and sophisticated language, but can be rather large and unwieldy. Various implementations of Lisp that can run on &unix; systems are available as packages for FreeBSD. GNU Common Lisp, CLISP by Bruno Haible and Michael Stoll, CMUCL which includes a highly-optimizing compiler too, or simpler Lisp implementations, like SLisp which implements most of the Common Lisp constructs in a few hundred lines of C code. Perl Very popular with system administrators for writing scripts; also often used on World Wide Web servers for writing CGI scripts. Perl is available as a package for all FreeBSD releases, and is installed as /usr/bin/perl in the base system of 4.x releases. Scheme A dialect of Lisp that is rather more compact and cleaner than Common Lisp. Popular in Universities as it is simple enough to teach to undergraduates as a first language, while it has a high enough level of abstraction to be used in research work. FreeBSD has packages of the Elk Scheme Interpreter, the MIT Scheme Interpreter and the SCM Scheme Interpreter. Icon Icon is a high-level language with extensive facilities for processing strings and structures. A package is available for FreeBSD. Logo Logo is a language that is easy to learn, and has been used as an introductory programming language in various courses. It is an excellent tool to work with when teaching programming in small ages, as it makes the creation of elaborate geometric shapes an easy task even for very small children. A package is available for FreeBSD of Brian Harvey's LOGO Interpreter. Python Python is an Object-Oriented, interpreted language. Its advocates argue that it is one of the best languages to start programming with, since it is relatively easy to start with, but is not limited in comparison to other popular interpreted languages that are used for the development of large, complex applications (Perl and Tcl are two other languages that are popular for such tasks). A package of the latest version of Python for FreeBSD is available here. Tcl and Tk Tcl is an embeddable, interpreted language, that has become widely used and became popular mostly because of its portability to many platforms. It can be used both for quickly writing small, prototype applications, or (when combined with Tk, a GUI toolkit) fully-fledged, featureful programs. Various versions of Tcl are available as packages for FreeBSD. The latest version is, as of this writing, Tcl version 8.3. Compilers Compilers are rather different. First of all, you write your code in a file (or files) using an editor. You then run the compiler and see if it accepts your program. If it did not compile, grit your teeth and go back to the editor; if it did compile and gave you a program, you can run it either at a shell command prompt or in a debugger to see if it works properly. If you run it in the shell, you may get a core dump. Obviously, this is not quite as direct as using an interpreter. However it allows you to do a lot of things which are very difficult or even impossible with an interpreter, such as writing code which interacts closely with the operating system—or even writing your own operating system! It is also useful if you need to write very efficient code, as the compiler can take its time and optimize the code, which would not be acceptable in an interpreter. Moreover, distributing a program written for a compiler is usually more straightforward than one written for an interpreter—you can just give them a copy of the executable, assuming they have the same operating system as you. Compiled languages include Pascal, C and C++. C and C++ are rather unforgiving languages, and best suited to more experienced programmers; Pascal, on the other hand, was designed as an educational language, and is quite a good language to start with. FreeBSD does not include Pascal support in the base system, but both GNU Pascal Compiler (GPC) and the Free Pascal Compiler are available in the ports collection as lang/gpc and lang/fpc. As the edit-compile-run-debug cycle is rather tedious when using separate programs, many commercial compiler makers have produced Integrated Development Environments (IDEs for short). FreeBSD does not include an IDE in the base system, but devel/kdevelop is available in the ports tree and many use Emacs for this purpose. Using Emacs as an IDE is discussed in . Compiling with <command>cc</command> This section deals only with the GNU compiler for C and C++, since that comes with the base FreeBSD system. It can be invoked by either cc or gcc. The details of producing a program with an interpreter vary considerably between interpreters, and are usually well covered in the documentation and on-line help for the interpreter. Once you have written your masterpiece, the next step is to convert it into something that will (hopefully!) run on FreeBSD. This usually involves several steps, each of which is done by a separate program. Pre-process your source code to remove comments and do other tricks like expanding macros in C. Check the syntax of your code to see if you have obeyed the rules of the language. If you have not, it will complain! Convert the source code into assembly language—this is very close to machine code, but still understandable by humans. Allegedly. To be strictly accurate, cc converts the source code into its own, machine-independent p-code instead of assembly language at this stage. Convert the assembly language into machine code—yep, we are talking bits and bytes, ones and zeros here. Check that you have used things like functions and global variables in a consistent way. For example, if you have called a non-existent function, it will complain. If you are trying to produce an executable from several source code files, work out how to fit them all together. Work out how to produce something that the system's run-time loader will be able to load into memory and run. Finally, write the executable on the filesystem. The word compiling is often used to refer to just steps 1 to 4—the others are referred to as linking. Sometimes step 1 is referred to as pre-processing and steps 3-4 as assembling. Fortunately, almost all this detail is hidden from you, as cc is a front end that manages calling all these programs with the right arguments for you; simply typing &prompt.user; cc foobar.c will cause foobar.c to be compiled by all the steps above. If you have more than one file to compile, just do something like &prompt.user; cc foo.c bar.c Note that the syntax checking is just that—checking the syntax. It will not check for any logical mistakes you may have made, like putting the program into an infinite loop, or using a bubble sort when you meant to use a binary sort. In case you did not know, a binary sort is an efficient way of sorting things into order and a bubble sort is not. There are lots and lots of options for cc, which are all in the manual page. Here are a few of the most important ones, with examples of how to use them. The output name of the file. If you do not use this option, cc will produce an executable called a.out. The reasons for this are buried in the mists of history. &prompt.user; cc foobar.c executable is a.out &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c executable is foobar Just compile the file, do not link it. Useful for toy programs where you just want to check the syntax, or if you are using a Makefile. &prompt.user; cc -c foobar.c This will produce an object file (not an executable) called foobar.o. This can be linked together with other object files into an executable. Create a debug version of the executable. This makes the compiler put information into the executable about which line of which source file corresponds to which function call. A debugger can use this information to show the source code as you step through the program, which is very useful; the disadvantage is that all this extra information makes the program much bigger. Normally, you compile with while you are developing a program and then compile a release version without when you are satisfied it works properly. &prompt.user; cc -g foobar.c This will produce a debug version of the program. Note, we did not use the flag to specify the executable name, so we will get an executable called a.out. Producing a debug version called foobar is left as an exercise for the reader! Create an optimized version of the executable. The compiler performs various clever tricks to try to produce an executable that runs faster than normal. You can add a number after the to specify a higher level of optimization, but this often exposes bugs in the compiler's optimizer. For instance, the version of cc that comes with the 2.1.0 release of FreeBSD is known to produce bad code with the option in some circumstances. Optimization is usually only turned on when compiling a release version. &prompt.user; cc -O -o foobar foobar.c This will produce an optimized version of foobar. The following three flags will force cc to check that your code complies to the relevant international standard, often referred to as the ANSI standard, though strictly speaking it is an ISO standard. Enable all the warnings which the authors of cc believe are worthwhile. Despite the name, it will not enable all the warnings cc is capable of. Turn off most, but not all, of the non-ANSI C features provided by cc. Despite the name, it does not guarantee strictly that your code will comply to the standard. Turn off all cc's non-ANSI C features. Without these flags, cc will allow you to use some of its non-standard extensions to the standard. Some of these are very useful, but will not work with other compilers—in fact, one of the main aims of the standard is to allow people to write code that will work with any compiler on any system. This is known as portable code. Generally, you should try to make your code as portable as possible, as otherwise you may have to completely rewrite the program later to get it to work somewhere else—and who knows what you may be using in a few years time? &prompt.user; cc -Wall -ansi -pedantic -o foobar foobar.c This will produce an executable foobar after checking foobar.c for standard compliance. Specify a function library to be used during when linking. The most common example of this is when compiling a program that uses some of the mathematical functions in C. Unlike most other platforms, these are in a separate library from the standard C one and you have to tell the compiler to add it. The rule is that if the library is called libsomething.a, you give cc the argument . For example, the math library is libm.a, so you give cc the argument . A common gotcha with the math library is that it has to be the last library on the command line. &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c -lm This will link the math library functions into foobar. If you are compiling C++ code, you need to add , or if you are using FreeBSD 2.2 or later, to the command line argument to link the C++ library functions. Alternatively, you can run c++ instead of cc, which does this for you. c++ can also be invoked as g++ on FreeBSD. &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.cc -lg++ For FreeBSD 2.1.6 and earlier &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.cc -lstdc++ For FreeBSD 2.2 and later &prompt.user; c++ -o foobar foobar.cc Each of these will both produce an executable foobar from the C++ source file foobar.cc. Note that, on &unix; systems, C++ source files traditionally end in .C, .cxx or .cc, rather than the &ms-dos; style .cpp (which was already used for something else). gcc used to rely on this to work out what kind of compiler to use on the source file; however, this restriction no longer applies, so you may now call your C++ files .cpp with impunity! Common <command>cc</command> Queries and Problems I am trying to write a program which uses the sin() function and I get an error like this. What does it mean? /var/tmp/cc0143941.o: Undefined symbol `_sin' referenced from text segment When using mathematical functions like sin(), you have to tell cc to link in the math library, like so: &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c -lm All right, I wrote this simple program to practice using . All it does is raise 2.1 to the power of 6. #include <stdio.h> int main() { float f; f = pow(2.1, 6); printf("2.1 ^ 6 = %f\n", f); return 0; } and I compiled it as: &prompt.user; cc temp.c -lm like you said I should, but I get this when I run it: &prompt.user; ./a.out 2.1 ^ 6 = 1023.000000 This is not the right answer! What is going on? When the compiler sees you call a function, it checks if it has already seen a prototype for it. If it has not, it assumes the function returns an int, which is definitely not what you want here. So how do I fix this? The prototypes for the mathematical functions are in math.h. If you include this file, the compiler will be able to find the prototype and it will stop doing strange things to your calculation! #include <math.h> #include <stdio.h> int main() { ... After recompiling it as you did before, run it: &prompt.user; ./a.out 2.1 ^ 6 = 85.766121 If you are using any of the mathematical functions, always include math.h and remember to link in the math library. I compiled a file called foobar.c and I cannot find an executable called foobar. Where's it gone? Remember, cc will call the executable a.out unless you tell it differently. Use the option: &prompt.user; cc -o foobar foobar.c OK, I have an executable called foobar, I can see it when I run ls, but when I type in foobar at the command prompt it tells me there is no such file. Why can it not find it? Unlike &ms-dos;, &unix; does not look in the current directory when it is trying to find out which executable you want it to run, unless you tell it to. Either type ./foobar, which means run the file called foobar in the current directory, or change your PATH environment variable so that it looks something like bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:. The dot at the end means look in the current directory if it is not in any of the others. I called my executable test, but nothing happens when I run it. What is going on? Most &unix; systems have a program called test in /usr/bin and the shell is picking that one up before it gets to checking the current directory. Either type: &prompt.user; ./test or choose a better name for your program! I compiled my program and it seemed to run all right at first, then there was an error and it said something about core dumped. What does that mean? The name core dump dates back to the very early days of &unix;, when the machines used core memory for storing data. Basically, if the program failed under certain conditions, the system would write the contents of core memory to disk in a file called core, which the programmer could then pore over to find out what went wrong. Fascinating stuff, but what I am supposed to do now? Use gdb to analyze the core (see ). When my program dumped core, it said something about a segmentation fault. What is that? This basically means that your program tried to perform some sort of illegal operation on memory; &unix; is designed to protect the operating system and other programs from rogue programs. Common causes for this are: Trying to write to a NULL pointer, eg char *foo = NULL; strcpy(foo, "bang!"); Using a pointer that has not been initialized, eg char *foo; strcpy(foo, "bang!"); The pointer will have some random value that, with luck, will point into an area of memory that is not available to your program and the kernel will kill your program before it can do any damage. If you are unlucky, it will point somewhere inside your own program and corrupt one of your data structures, causing the program to fail mysteriously. Trying to access past the end of an array, eg int bar[20]; bar[27] = 6; Trying to store something in read-only memory, eg char *foo = "My string"; strcpy(foo, "bang!"); &unix; compilers often put string literals like "My string" into read-only areas of memory. Doing naughty things with malloc() and free(), eg char bar[80]; free(bar); or char *foo = malloc(27); free(foo); free(foo); Making one of these mistakes will not always lead to an error, but they are always bad practice. Some systems and compilers are more tolerant than others, which is why programs that ran well on one system can crash when you try them on an another. Sometimes when I get a core dump it says bus error. It says in my &unix; book that this means a hardware problem, but the computer still seems to be working. Is this true? No, fortunately not (unless of course you really do have a hardware problem…). This is usually another way of saying that you accessed memory in a way you should not have. This dumping core business sounds as though it could be quite useful, if I can make it happen when I want to. Can I do this, or do I have to wait until there is an error? Yes, just go to another console or xterm, do &prompt.user; ps to find out the process ID of your program, and do &prompt.user; kill -ABRT pid where pid is the process ID you looked up. This is useful if your program has got stuck in an infinite loop, for instance. If your program happens to trap SIGABRT, there are several other signals which have a similar effect. Alternatively, you can create a core dump from inside your program, by calling the abort() function. See the manual page of &man.abort.3; to learn more. If you want to create a core dump from outside your program, but do not want the process to terminate, you can use the gcore program. See the manual page of &man.gcore.1; for more information. Make What is <command>make</command>? When you are working on a simple program with only one or two source files, typing in &prompt.user; cc file1.c file2.c is not too bad, but it quickly becomes very tedious when there are several files—and it can take a while to compile, too. One way to get around this is to use object files and only recompile the source file if the source code has changed. So we could have something like: &prompt.user; cc file1.o file2.o … file37.c … if we had changed file37.c, but not any of the others, since the last time we compiled. This may speed up the compilation quite a bit, but does not solve the typing problem. Or we could write a shell script to solve the typing problem, but it would have to re-compile everything, making it very inefficient on a large project. What happens if we have hundreds of source files lying about? What if we are working in a team with other people who forget to tell us when they have changed one of their source files that we use? Perhaps we could put the two solutions together and write something like a shell script that would contain some kind of magic rule saying when a source file needs compiling. Now all we need now is a program that can understand these rules, as it is a bit too complicated for the shell. This program is called make. It reads in a file, called a makefile, that tells it how different files depend on each other, and works out which files need to be re-compiled and which ones do not. For example, a rule could say something like if fromboz.o is older than fromboz.c, that means someone must have changed fromboz.c, so it needs to be re-compiled. The makefile also has rules telling make how to re-compile the source file, making it a much more powerful tool. Makefiles are typically kept in the same directory as the source they apply to, and can be called makefile, Makefile or MAKEFILE. Most programmers use the name Makefile, as this puts it near the top of a directory listing, where it can easily be seen. They do not use the MAKEFILE form as block capitals are often used for documentation files like README. Example of using <command>make</command> Here is a very simple make file: foo: foo.c cc -o foo foo.c It consists of two lines, a dependency line and a creation line. The dependency line here consists of the name of the program (known as the target), followed by a colon, then whitespace, then the name of the source file. When make reads this line, it looks to see if foo exists; if it exists, it compares the time foo was last modified to the time foo.c was last modified. If foo does not exist, or is older than foo.c, it then looks at the creation line to find out what to do. In other words, this is the rule for working out when foo.c needs to be re-compiled. The creation line starts with a tab (press the tab key) and then the command you would type to create foo if you were doing it at a command prompt. If foo is out of date, or does not exist, make then executes this command to create it. In other words, this is the rule which tells make how to re-compile foo.c. So, when you type make, it will make sure that foo is up to date with respect to your latest changes to foo.c. This principle can be extended to Makefiles with hundreds of targets—in fact, on FreeBSD, it is possible to compile the entire operating system just by typing make world in the appropriate directory! Another useful property of makefiles is that the targets do not have to be programs. For instance, we could have a make file that looks like this: foo: foo.c cc -o foo foo.c install: cp foo /home/me We can tell make which target we want to make by typing: &prompt.user; make target make will then only look at that target and ignore any others. For example, if we type make foo with the makefile above, make will ignore the install target. If we just type make on its own, make will always look at the first target and then stop without looking at any others. So if we typed make here, it will just go to the foo target, re-compile foo if necessary, and then stop without going on to the install target. Notice that the install target does not actually depend on anything! This means that the command on the following line is always executed when we try to make that target by typing make install. In this case, it will copy foo into the user's home directory. This is often used by application makefiles, so that the application can be installed in the correct directory when it has been correctly compiled. This is a slightly confusing subject to try to explain. If you do not quite understand how make works, the best thing to do is to write a simple program like hello world and a make file like the one above and experiment. Then progress to using more than one source file, or having the source file include a header file. The touch command is very useful here—it changes the date on a file without you having to edit it. Make and include-files C code often starts with a list of files to include, for example stdio.h. Some of these files are system-include files, some of them are from the project you are now working on: #include <stdio.h> #include "foo.h" int main(.... To make sure that this file is recompiled the moment foo.h is changed, you have to add it in your Makefile: foo: foo.c foo.h The moment your project is getting bigger and you have more and more own include-files to maintain, it will be a pain to keep track of all include files and the files which are depending on it. If you change an include-file but forget to recompile all the files which are depending on it, the results will be devastating. gcc has an option to analyze your files and to produce a list of include-files and their dependencies: . If you add this to your Makefile: depend: gcc -E -MM *.c > .depend and run make depend, the file .depend will appear with a list of object-files, C-files and the include-files: foo.o: foo.c foo.h If you change foo.h, next time you run make all files depending on foo.h will be recompiled. Do not forget to run make depend each time you add an include-file to one of your files. FreeBSD Makefiles Makefiles can be rather complicated to write. Fortunately, BSD-based systems like FreeBSD come with some very powerful ones as part of the system. One very good example of this is the FreeBSD ports system. Here is the essential part of a typical ports Makefile: MASTER_SITES= ftp://freefall.cdrom.com/pub/FreeBSD/LOCAL_PORTS/ DISTFILES= scheme-microcode+dist-7.3-freebsd.tgz .include <bsd.port.mk> Now, if we go to the directory for this port and type make, the following happens: A check is made to see if the source code for this port is already on the system. If it is not, an FTP connection to the URL in MASTER_SITES is set up to download the source. The checksum for the source is calculated and compared it with one for a known, good, copy of the source. This is to make sure that the source was not corrupted while in transit. Any changes required to make the source work on FreeBSD are applied—this is known as patching. Any special configuration needed for the source is done. (Many &unix; program distributions try to work out which version of &unix; they are being compiled on and which optional &unix; features are present—this is where they are given the information in the FreeBSD ports scenario). The source code for the program is compiled. In effect, we change to the directory where the source was unpacked and do make—the program's own make file has the necessary information to build the program. We now have a compiled version of the program. If we wish, we can test it now; when we feel confident about the program, we can type make install. This will cause the program and any supporting files it needs to be copied into the correct location; an entry is also made into a package database, so that the port can easily be uninstalled later if we change our mind about it. Now I think you will agree that is rather impressive for a four line script! The secret lies in the last line, which tells make to look in the system makefile called bsd.port.mk. It is easy to overlook this line, but this is where all the clever stuff comes from—someone has written a makefile that tells make to do all the things above (plus a couple of other things I did not mention, including handling any errors that may occur) and anyone can get access to that just by putting a single line in their own make file! If you want to have a look at these system makefiles, they are in /usr/share/mk, but it is probably best to wait until you have had a bit of practice with makefiles, as they are very complicated (and if you do look at them, make sure you have a flask of strong coffee handy!) More advanced uses of <command>make</command> Make is a very powerful tool, and can do much more than the simple example above shows. Unfortunately, there are several different versions of make, and they all differ considerably. The best way to learn what they can do is probably to read the documentation—hopefully this introduction will have given you a base from which you can do this. The version of make that comes with FreeBSD is the Berkeley make; there is a tutorial for it in /usr/share/doc/psd/12.make. To view it, do &prompt.user; zmore paper.ascii.gz in that directory. Many applications in the ports use GNU make, which has a very good set of info pages. If you have installed any of these ports, GNU make will automatically have been installed as gmake. It is also available as a port and package in its own right. To view the info pages for GNU make, you will have to edit the dir file in the /usr/local/info directory to add an entry for it. This involves adding a line like * Make: (make). The GNU Make utility. to the file. Once you have done this, you can type info and then select make from the menu (or in Emacs, do C-h i). Debugging The Debugger The debugger that comes with FreeBSD is called gdb (GNU debugger). You start it up by typing &prompt.user; gdb progname although most people prefer to run it inside Emacs. You can do this by: M-x gdb RET progname RET Using a debugger allows you to run the program under more controlled circumstances. Typically, you can step through the program a line at a time, inspect the value of variables, change them, tell the debugger to run up to a certain point and then stop, and so on. You can even attach to a program that is already running, or load a core file to investigate why the program crashed. It is even possible to debug the kernel, though that is a little trickier than the user applications we will be discussing in this section. gdb has quite good on-line help, as well as a set of info pages, so this section will concentrate on a few of the basic commands. Finally, if you find its text-based command-prompt style off-putting, there is a graphical front-end for it (xxgdb) in the ports + URL="&url.main;/ports/devel.html">xxgdb) in the ports collection. This section is intended to be an introduction to using gdb and does not cover specialized topics such as debugging the kernel. Running a program in the debugger You will need to have compiled the program with the option to get the most out of using gdb. It will work without, but you will only see the name of the function you are in, instead of the source code. If you see a line like: … (no debugging symbols found) … when gdb starts up, you will know that the program was not compiled with the option. At the gdb prompt, type break main. This will tell the debugger to skip over the preliminary set-up code in the program and start at the beginning of your code. Now type run to start the program—it will start at the beginning of the set-up code and then get stopped by the debugger when it calls main(). (If you have ever wondered where main() gets called from, now you know!). You can now step through the program, a line at a time, by pressing n. If you get to a function call, you can step into it by pressing s. Once you are in a function call, you can return from stepping into a function call by pressing f. You can also use up and down to take a quick look at the caller. Here is a simple example of how to spot a mistake in a program with gdb. This is our program (with a deliberate mistake): #include <stdio.h> int bazz(int anint); main() { int i; printf("This is my program\n"); bazz(i); return 0; } int bazz(int anint) { printf("You gave me %d\n", anint); return anint; } This program sets i to be 5 and passes it to a function bazz() which prints out the number we gave it. When we compile and run the program we get &prompt.user; cc -g -o temp temp.c &prompt.user; ./temp This is my program anint = 4231 That was not what we expected! Time to see what is going on! &prompt.user; gdb temp GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type "show warranty" for details. GDB 4.13 (i386-unknown-freebsd), Copyright 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc. (gdb) break main Skip the set-up code Breakpoint 1 at 0x160f: file temp.c, line 9. gdb puts breakpoint at main() (gdb) run Run as far as main() Starting program: /home/james/tmp/temp Program starts running Breakpoint 1, main () at temp.c:9 gdb stops at main() (gdb) n Go to next line This is my program Program prints out (gdb) s step into bazz() bazz (anint=4231) at temp.c:17 gdb displays stack frame (gdb) Hang on a minute! How did anint get to be 4231? Did we not we set it to be 5 in main()? Let's move up to main() and have a look. (gdb) up Move up call stack #1 0x1625 in main () at temp.c:11 gdb displays stack frame (gdb) p i Show us the value of i $1 = 4231 gdb displays 4231 Oh dear! Looking at the code, we forgot to initialize i. We meant to put … main() { int i; i = 5; printf("This is my program\n"); … but we left the i=5; line out. As we did not initialize i, it had whatever number happened to be in that area of memory when the program ran, which in this case happened to be 4231. gdb displays the stack frame every time we go into or out of a function, even if we are using up and down to move around the call stack. This shows the name of the function and the values of its arguments, which helps us keep track of where we are and what is going on. (The stack is a storage area where the program stores information about the arguments passed to functions and where to go when it returns from a function call). Examining a core file A core file is basically a file which contains the complete state of the process when it crashed. In the good old days, programmers had to print out hex listings of core files and sweat over machine code manuals, but now life is a bit easier. Incidentally, under FreeBSD and other 4.4BSD systems, a core file is called progname.core instead of just core, to make it clearer which program a core file belongs to. To examine a core file, start up gdb in the usual way. Instead of typing break or run, type (gdb) core progname.core If you are not in the same directory as the core file, you will have to do dir /path/to/core/file first. You should see something like this: &prompt.user; gdb a.out GDB is free software and you are welcome to distribute copies of it under certain conditions; type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB; type "show warranty" for details. GDB 4.13 (i386-unknown-freebsd), Copyright 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc. (gdb) core a.out.core Core was generated by `a.out'. Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault. Cannot access memory at address 0x7020796d. #0 0x164a in bazz (anint=0x5) at temp.c:17 (gdb) In this case, the program was called a.out, so the core file is called a.out.core. We can see that the program crashed due to trying to access an area in memory that was not available to it in a function called bazz. Sometimes it is useful to be able to see how a function was called, as the problem could have occurred a long way up the call stack in a complex program. The bt command causes gdb to print out a back-trace of the call stack: (gdb) bt #0 0x164a in bazz (anint=0x5) at temp.c:17 #1 0xefbfd888 in end () #2 0x162c in main () at temp.c:11 (gdb) The end() function is called when a program crashes; in this case, the bazz() function was called from main(). Attaching to a running program One of the neatest features about gdb is that it can attach to a program that is already running. Of course, that assumes you have sufficient permissions to do so. A common problem is when you are stepping through a program that forks, and you want to trace the child, but the debugger will only let you trace the parent. What you do is start up another gdb, use ps to find the process ID for the child, and do (gdb) attach pid in gdb, and then debug as usual. That is all very well, you are probably thinking, but by the time I have done that, the child process will be over the hill and far away. Fear not, gentle reader, here is how to do it (courtesy of the gdb info pages): … if ((pid = fork()) < 0) /* _Always_ check this */ error(); else if (pid == 0) { /* child */ int PauseMode = 1; while (PauseMode) sleep(10); /* Wait until someone attaches to us */ … } else { /* parent */ … Now all you have to do is attach to the child, set PauseMode to 0, and wait for the sleep() call to return! Using Emacs as a Development Environment Emacs Unfortunately, &unix; systems do not come with the kind of everything-you-ever-wanted-and-lots-more-you-did-not-in-one-gigantic-package integrated development environments that other systems have. Some powerful, free IDEs now exist, such as KDevelop in the ports collection. However, it is possible to set up your own environment. It may not be as pretty, and it may not be quite as integrated, but you can set it up the way you want it. And it is free. And you have the source to it. The key to it all is Emacs. Now there are some people who loathe it, but many who love it. If you are one of the former, I am afraid this section will hold little of interest to you. Also, you will need a fair amount of memory to run it—I would recommend 8MB in text mode and 16MB in X as the bare minimum to get reasonable performance. Emacs is basically a highly customizable editor—indeed, it has been customized to the point where it is more like an operating system than an editor! Many developers and sysadmins do in fact spend practically all their time working inside Emacs, leaving it only to log out. It is impossible even to summarize everything Emacs can do here, but here are some of the features of interest to developers: Very powerful editor, allowing search-and-replace on both strings and regular expressions (patterns), jumping to start/end of block expression, etc, etc. Pull-down menus and online help. Language-dependent syntax highlighting and indentation. Completely customizable. You can compile and debug programs within Emacs. On a compilation error, you can jump to the offending line of source code. Friendly-ish front-end to the info program used for reading GNU hypertext documentation, including the documentation on Emacs itself. Friendly front-end to gdb, allowing you to look at the source code as you step through your program. You can read Usenet news and mail while your program is compiling. And doubtless many more that I have overlooked. Emacs can be installed on FreeBSD using the Emacs + URL="&url.main;/ports/editors.html">the Emacs port. Once it is installed, start it up and do C-h t to read an Emacs tutorial—that means hold down the control key, press h, let go of the control key, and then press t. (Alternatively, you can you use the mouse to select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu). Although Emacs does have menus, it is well worth learning the key bindings, as it is much quicker when you are editing something to press a couple of keys than to try to find the mouse and then click on the right place. And, when you are talking to seasoned Emacs users, you will find they often casually throw around expressions like M-x replace-s RET foo RET bar RET so it is useful to know what they mean. And in any case, Emacs has far too many useful functions for them to all fit on the menu bars. Fortunately, it is quite easy to pick up the key-bindings, as they are displayed next to the menu item. My advice is to use the menu item for, say, opening a file until you understand how it works and feel confident with it, then try doing C-x C-f. When you are happy with that, move on to another menu command. If you can not remember what a particular combination of keys does, select Describe Key from the Help menu and type it in—Emacs will tell you what it does. You can also use the Command Apropos menu item to find out all the commands which contain a particular word in them, with the key binding next to it. By the way, the expression above means hold down the Meta key, press x, release the Meta key, type replace-s (short for replace-string—another feature of Emacs is that you can abbreviate commands), press the return key, type foo (the string you want replaced), press the return key, type bar (the string you want to replace foo with) and press return again. Emacs will then do the search-and-replace operation you have just requested. If you are wondering what on earth the Meta key is, it is a special key that many &unix; workstations have. Unfortunately, PC's do not have one, so it is usually the alt key (or if you are unlucky, the escape key). Oh, and to get out of Emacs, do C-x C-c (that means hold down the control key, press x, press c and release the control key). If you have any unsaved files open, Emacs will ask you if you want to save them. (Ignore the bit in the documentation where it says C-z is the usual way to leave Emacs—that leaves Emacs hanging around in the background, and is only really useful if you are on a system which does not have virtual terminals). Configuring Emacs Emacs does many wonderful things; some of them are built in, some of them need to be configured. Instead of using a proprietary macro language for configuration, Emacs uses a version of Lisp specially adapted for editors, known as Emacs Lisp. Working with Emacs Lisp can be quite helpful if you want to go on and learn something like Common Lisp. Emacs Lisp has many features of Common Lisp, although it is considerably smaller (and thus easier to master). The best way to learn Emacs Lisp is to download the Emacs Tutorial However, there is no need to actually know any Lisp to get started with configuring Emacs, as I have included a sample .emacs file, which should be enough to get you started. Just copy it into your home directory and restart Emacs if it is already running; it will read the commands from the file and (hopefully) give you a useful basic setup. A sample <filename>.emacs</filename> file Unfortunately, there is far too much here to explain it in detail; however there are one or two points worth mentioning. Everything beginning with a ; is a comment and is ignored by Emacs. In the first line, the -*- Emacs-Lisp -*- is so that we can edit the .emacs file itself within Emacs and get all the fancy features for editing Emacs Lisp. Emacs usually tries to guess this based on the filename, and may not get it right for .emacs. The tab key is bound to an indentation function in some modes, so when you press the tab key, it will indent the current line of code. If you want to put a tab character in whatever you are writing, hold the control key down while you are pressing the tab key. This file supports syntax highlighting for C, C++, Perl, Lisp and Scheme, by guessing the language from the filename. Emacs already has a pre-defined function called next-error. In a compilation output window, this allows you to move from one compilation error to the next by doing M-n; we define a complementary function, previous-error, that allows you to go to a previous error by doing M-p. The nicest feature of all is that C-c C-c will open up the source file in which the error occurred and jump to the appropriate line. We enable Emacs's ability to act as a server, so that if you are doing something outside Emacs and you want to edit a file, you can just type in &prompt.user; emacsclient filename and then you can edit the file in your Emacs! Many Emacs users set their EDITOR environment to emacsclient so this happens every time they need to edit a file. A sample <filename>.emacs</filename> file ;; -*-Emacs-Lisp-*- ;; This file is designed to be re-evaled; use the variable first-time ;; to avoid any problems with this. (defvar first-time t "Flag signifying this is the first time that .emacs has been evaled") ;; Meta (global-set-key "\M- " 'set-mark-command) (global-set-key "\M-\C-h" 'backward-kill-word) (global-set-key "\M-\C-r" 'query-replace) (global-set-key "\M-r" 'replace-string) (global-set-key "\M-g" 'goto-line) (global-set-key "\M-h" 'help-command) ;; Function keys (global-set-key [f1] 'manual-entry) (global-set-key [f2] 'info) (global-set-key [f3] 'repeat-complex-command) (global-set-key [f4] 'advertised-undo) (global-set-key [f5] 'eval-current-buffer) (global-set-key [f6] 'buffer-menu) (global-set-key [f7] 'other-window) (global-set-key [f8] 'find-file) (global-set-key [f9] 'save-buffer) (global-set-key [f10] 'next-error) (global-set-key [f11] 'compile) (global-set-key [f12] 'grep) (global-set-key [C-f1] 'compile) (global-set-key [C-f2] 'grep) (global-set-key [C-f3] 'next-error) (global-set-key [C-f4] 'previous-error) (global-set-key [C-f5] 'display-faces) (global-set-key [C-f8] 'dired) (global-set-key [C-f10] 'kill-compilation) ;; Keypad bindings (global-set-key [up] "\C-p") (global-set-key [down] "\C-n") (global-set-key [left] "\C-b") (global-set-key [right] "\C-f") (global-set-key [home] "\C-a") (global-set-key [end] "\C-e") (global-set-key [prior] "\M-v") (global-set-key [next] "\C-v") (global-set-key [C-up] "\M-\C-b") (global-set-key [C-down] "\M-\C-f") (global-set-key [C-left] "\M-b") (global-set-key [C-right] "\M-f") (global-set-key [C-home] "\M-<") (global-set-key [C-end] "\M->") (global-set-key [C-prior] "\M-<") (global-set-key [C-next] "\M->") ;; Mouse (global-set-key [mouse-3] 'imenu) ;; Misc (global-set-key [C-tab] "\C-q\t") ; Control tab quotes a tab. (setq backup-by-copying-when-mismatch t) ;; Treat 'y' or <CR> as yes, 'n' as no. (fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p) (define-key query-replace-map [return] 'act) (define-key query-replace-map [?\C-m] 'act) ;; Load packages (require 'desktop) (require 'tar-mode) ;; Pretty diff mode (autoload 'ediff-buffers "ediff" "Intelligent Emacs interface to diff" t) (autoload 'ediff-files "ediff" "Intelligent Emacs interface to diff" t) (autoload 'ediff-files-remote "ediff" "Intelligent Emacs interface to diff") (if first-time (setq auto-mode-alist (append '(("\\.cpp$" . c++-mode) ("\\.hpp$" . c++-mode) ("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode) ("\\.scm$" . scheme-mode) ("\\.pl$" . perl-mode) ) auto-mode-alist))) ;; Auto font lock mode (defvar font-lock-auto-mode-list (list 'c-mode 'c++-mode 'c++-c-mode 'emacs-lisp-mode 'lisp-mode 'perl-mode 'scheme-mode) "List of modes to always start in font-lock-mode") (defvar font-lock-mode-keyword-alist '((c++-c-mode . c-font-lock-keywords) (perl-mode . perl-font-lock-keywords)) "Associations between modes and keywords") (defun font-lock-auto-mode-select () "Automatically select font-lock-mode if the current major mode is in font-lock-auto-mode-list" (if (memq major-mode font-lock-auto-mode-list) (progn (font-lock-mode t)) ) ) (global-set-key [M-f1] 'font-lock-fontify-buffer) ;; New dabbrev stuff ;(require 'new-dabbrev) (setq dabbrev-always-check-other-buffers t) (setq dabbrev-abbrev-char-regexp "\\sw\\|\\s_") (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook '(lambda () (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) nil) (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) nil))) (add-hook 'c-mode-hook '(lambda () (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) nil) (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) nil))) (add-hook 'text-mode-hook '(lambda () (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-fold-search) t) (set (make-local-variable 'dabbrev-case-replace) t))) ;; C++ and C mode... (defun my-c++-mode-hook () (setq tab-width 4) (define-key c++-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent) (define-key c++-mode-map "\C-ce" 'c-comment-edit) (setq c++-auto-hungry-initial-state 'none) (setq c++-delete-function 'backward-delete-char) (setq c++-tab-always-indent t) (setq c-indent-level 4) (setq c-continued-statement-offset 4) (setq c++-empty-arglist-indent 4)) (defun my-c-mode-hook () (setq tab-width 4) (define-key c-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent) (define-key c-mode-map "\C-ce" 'c-comment-edit) (setq c-auto-hungry-initial-state 'none) (setq c-delete-function 'backward-delete-char) (setq c-tab-always-indent t) ;; BSD-ish indentation style (setq c-indent-level 4) (setq c-continued-statement-offset 4) (setq c-brace-offset -4) (setq c-argdecl-indent 0) (setq c-label-offset -4)) ;; Perl mode (defun my-perl-mode-hook () (setq tab-width 4) (define-key c++-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent) (setq perl-indent-level 4) (setq perl-continued-statement-offset 4)) ;; Scheme mode... (defun my-scheme-mode-hook () (define-key scheme-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent)) ;; Emacs-Lisp mode... (defun my-lisp-mode-hook () (define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-m" 'reindent-then-newline-and-indent) (define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-i" 'lisp-indent-line) (define-key lisp-mode-map "\C-j" 'eval-print-last-sexp)) ;; Add all of the hooks... (add-hook 'c++-mode-hook 'my-c++-mode-hook) (add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'my-c-mode-hook) (add-hook 'scheme-mode-hook 'my-scheme-mode-hook) (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook 'my-lisp-mode-hook) (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook 'my-lisp-mode-hook) (add-hook 'perl-mode-hook 'my-perl-mode-hook) ;; Complement to next-error (defun previous-error (n) "Visit previous compilation error message and corresponding source code." (interactive "p") (next-error (- n))) ;; Misc... (transient-mark-mode 1) (setq mark-even-if-inactive t) (setq visible-bell nil) (setq next-line-add-newlines nil) (setq compile-command "make") (setq suggest-key-bindings nil) (put 'eval-expression 'disabled nil) (put 'narrow-to-region 'disabled nil) (put 'set-goal-column 'disabled nil) (if (>= emacs-major-version 21) (setq show-trailing-whitespace t)) ;; Elisp archive searching (autoload 'format-lisp-code-directory "lispdir" nil t) (autoload 'lisp-dir-apropos "lispdir" nil t) (autoload 'lisp-dir-retrieve "lispdir" nil t) (autoload 'lisp-dir-verify "lispdir" nil t) ;; Font lock mode (defun my-make-face (face color &optional bold) "Create a face from a color and optionally make it bold" (make-face face) (copy-face 'default face) (set-face-foreground face color) (if bold (make-face-bold face)) ) (if (eq window-system 'x) (progn (my-make-face 'blue "blue") (my-make-face 'red "red") (my-make-face 'green "dark green") (setq font-lock-comment-face 'blue) (setq font-lock-string-face 'bold) (setq font-lock-type-face 'bold) (setq font-lock-keyword-face 'bold) (setq font-lock-function-name-face 'red) (setq font-lock-doc-string-face 'green) (add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'font-lock-auto-mode-select) (setq baud-rate 1000000) (global-set-key "\C-cmm" 'menu-bar-mode) (global-set-key "\C-cms" 'scroll-bar-mode) (global-set-key [backspace] 'backward-delete-char) ; (global-set-key [delete] 'delete-char) (standard-display-european t) (load-library "iso-transl"))) ;; X11 or PC using direct screen writes (if window-system (progn ;; (global-set-key [M-f1] 'hilit-repaint-command) ;; (global-set-key [M-f2] [?\C-u M-f1]) (setq hilit-mode-enable-list '(not text-mode c-mode c++-mode emacs-lisp-mode lisp-mode scheme-mode) hilit-auto-highlight nil hilit-auto-rehighlight 'visible hilit-inhibit-hooks nil hilit-inhibit-rebinding t) (require 'hilit19) (require 'paren)) (setq baud-rate 2400) ; For slow serial connections ) ;; TTY type terminal (if (and (not window-system) (not (equal system-type 'ms-dos))) (progn (if first-time (progn (keyboard-translate ?\C-h ?\C-?) (keyboard-translate ?\C-? ?\C-h))))) ;; Under UNIX (if (not (equal system-type 'ms-dos)) (progn (if first-time (server-start)))) ;; Add any face changes here (add-hook 'term-setup-hook 'my-term-setup-hook) (defun my-term-setup-hook () (if (eq window-system 'pc) (progn ;; (set-face-background 'default "red") ))) ;; Restore the "desktop" - do this as late as possible (if first-time (progn (desktop-load-default) (desktop-read))) ;; Indicate that this file has been read at least once (setq first-time nil) ;; No need to debug anything now (setq debug-on-error nil) ;; All done (message "All done, %s%s" (user-login-name) ".") Extending the Range of Languages Emacs Understands Now, this is all very well if you only want to program in the languages already catered for in the .emacs file (C, C++, Perl, Lisp and Scheme), but what happens if a new language called whizbang comes out, full of exciting features? The first thing to do is find out if whizbang comes with any files that tell Emacs about the language. These usually end in .el, short for Emacs Lisp. For example, if whizbang is a FreeBSD port, we can locate these files by doing &prompt.user; find /usr/ports/lang/whizbang -name "*.el" -print and install them by copying them into the Emacs site Lisp directory. On FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE, this is /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. So for example, if the output from the find command was /usr/ports/lang/whizbang/work/misc/whizbang.el we would do &prompt.root; cp /usr/ports/lang/whizbang/work/misc/whizbang.el /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp Next, we need to decide what extension whizbang source files have. Let's say for the sake of argument that they all end in .wiz. We need to add an entry to our .emacs file to make sure Emacs will be able to use the information in whizbang.el. Find the auto-mode-alist entry in .emacs and add a line for whizbang, such as: … ("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode) ("\\.wiz$" . whizbang-mode) ("\\.scm$" . scheme-mode) … This means that Emacs will automatically go into whizbang-mode when you edit a file ending in .wiz. Just below this, you will find the font-lock-auto-mode-list entry. Add whizbang-mode to it like so: ;; Auto font lock mode (defvar font-lock-auto-mode-list (list 'c-mode 'c++-mode 'c++-c-mode 'emacs-lisp-mode 'whizbang-mode 'lisp-mode 'perl-mode 'scheme-mode) "List of modes to always start in font-lock-mode") This means that Emacs will always enable font-lock-mode (ie syntax highlighting) when editing a .wiz file. And that is all that is needed. If there is anything else you want done automatically when you open up a .wiz file, you can add a whizbang-mode hook (see my-scheme-mode-hook for a simple example that adds auto-indent). Further Reading Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright Simply Scheme MIT 1994. ISBN 0-262-08226-8 Randall Schwartz Learning Perl O'Reilly 1993 ISBN 1-56592-042-2 Patrick Henry Winston and Berthold Klaus Paul Horn Lisp (3rd Edition) Addison-Wesley 1989 ISBN 0-201-08319-1 Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike The Unix Programming Environment Prentice-Hall 1984 ISBN 0-13-937681-X Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie The C Programming Language (2nd Edition) Prentice-Hall 1988 ISBN 0-13-110362-8 Bjarne Stroustrup The C++ Programming Language Addison-Wesley 1991 ISBN 0-201-53992-6 W. Richard Stevens Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment Addison-Wesley 1992 ISBN 0-201-56317-7 W. Richard Stevens Unix Network Programming Prentice-Hall 1990 ISBN 0-13-949876-1 diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml index eabef01ac9..3559aef640 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml @@ -1,12158 +1,12161 @@ %man; %freebsd; %authors; %teams; %bookinfo; %mailing-lists; + +%urls; + ]> Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 2.X, 3.X, 4.X and 5.X The FreeBSD Documentation Project $FreeBSD$ 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 The FreeBSD Documentation Project &bookinfo.trademarks; &bookinfo.legalnotice; This is the FAQ for FreeBSD versions 2.X, 3.X, 4.X and 5.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 + URL="&url.main;/search/index.html">Search the FAQ. Introduction Welcome to the FreeBSD 2.X-5.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 + 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 + URL="&url.main;/gallery/index.html">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 are the differences between FreeBSD and NetBSD, OpenBSD, and other open source BSD operating systems? James Howard wrote a good explanation of the history and differences between the various projects for DaemonNews, called The BSD Family Tree which goes a fair way to answering this question. 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 the new &os.stable; branch. This is expected to happen around 5.3-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 + URL="&url.main;/releases/snapshots.html">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/snapshots/. 3-STABLE snapshots are no longer being produced. 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 since 2.0 was released, leading towards 5.2.1-RELEASE (and beyond). At 5.3-RELEASE, the 5-STABLE branch is expected to be created, and &os.current; will become 6-CURRENT. 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 -> ... later 4.X releases ... | | (July 2000) (Sep 2000) (Nov 2000) 5.0-RELEASE (Jan 2003) | | 5.1-RELEASE (Jun 2003) | | 5.2-RELEASE (Jan 2004) | | 5.2.1-RELEASE (Feb 2004) | \|/ + [5-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 branch is &rel2.current;-RELEASE, which was released in &rel2.current.date;. The 5-CURRENT branch is slowly progressing toward the creation of a 5-STABLE branch. 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.X 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 by using our web-based PR query interface. The &man.send-pr.1; command can be used to submit problem reports and change requests via electronic mail. The web-based problem report submission interface is currently disabled due to persistent abuse. 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 . What other sources of information are there? Please check the Documentation list on the main FreeBSD web site. Documentation and Support What good books are there about FreeBSD? The project produces a wide range of documentation, available online from this link: . 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: Name Meaning en_US.ISO8859-1 US English de_DE.ISO8859-1 German es_ES.ISO8859-1 Spanish fr_FR.ISO8859-1 French ja_JP.eucJP Japanese (EUC encoding) ru_RU.KOI8-R Russian (KOI8-R encoding) zh_TW.Big5 Chinese (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: Format Meaning html-split A collection of small, linked, HTML files. html One large HTML file containing the entire document pdb Palm Pilot database format, for use with the iSilo reader. pdf Adobe's Portable Document Format ps PostScript rtf Microsoft's Rich Text Format Page numbers are not automatically updated when loading this format into Word. Press CTRLA, CTRLEND, F9 after loading the document, to update the page numbers. txt Plain text The 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 two compression schemes. Scheme Description zip The Zip format. If you want to uncompress this on FreeBSD you will need to install the archivers/unzip port first. bz2 The BZip2 format. Less widespread than Zip, 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.tgz Having 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.bzip2.1;, can be found in the doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.html-split.tar.bz2 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.bz2 &prompt.root; bzip2 -d book.html-split.tar.bz2 &prompt.root; tar xvf book.html-split.tar You 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. + URL="&url.main;/y2kbug.html">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. Nik Clayton
nik@FreeBSD.org
 Installation Which 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. 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.bin and 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 bootdevice substituting 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. Model BIOS revision T20 IYET49WW or later T21 KZET22WW or later A20p IVET62WW or later A20m IWET54WW or later A21p KYET27WW or later A21m KXET24WW or later A21e KUET30WW It 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 . 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 (ALT F4) 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 ad0sn n 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 supported FreeBSD 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: 63 How 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 wd2 Install 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 sizes fs block size 2.2.7-stable 3.0-current works should work 4K 4T-1 4T-1 4T-1 >4T 8K >32G 8T-1 >32G 32T-1 16K >128G 16T-1 >128G 32T-1 32K >512G 32T-1 >512G 64T-1 64K >2048G 64T-1 >2048G 128T-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. 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 compatibility Does FreeBSD support architectures other than the x86? Yes. FreeBSD currently runs on the Intel x86 and DEC (now Compaq) Alpha architectures. As of FreeBSD 5.0, the IA-64, AMD-64 and SPARC-64 architectures are also supported. Upcoming platforms are MIPS and PowerPC; join 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 for &os; &rel.current; or &rel2.current; 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 Hardware Notes for &os; &rel.current; or &rel2.current;. 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 31/33A Sound Blaster Non-SCSI CDROM Matsushita/Panasonic CDROM ATAPI compatible IDE CDROMs All non-SCSI cards are known to be extremely slow compared to SCSI drives, and some ATAPI CDROMs may not work. The official FreeBSD CDROM ISO, and CDROMs from Daemon News and FreeBSD Mall, support 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 SCSI and ATAPI (IDE) ZIP drives out of the box, of course. SCSI ZIP drives 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. FreeBSD also supports Parallel Port Zip Drives. 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? FreeBSD 4.X and later supports USB keyboards out-of-the-box. Preliminary USB device support appeared in FreeBSD 3.1, but might not always work as of version 3.2. If you want to experiment with the USB keyboard support in FreeBSD 3.X, follow the procedure described below. Use a version of FreeBSD 3.X later than 3.2. Add the following lines to your kernel configuration file, and rebuild the kernel. controller uhci0 controller ohci0 controller usb0 controller ukbd0 options KBD_INSTALL_CDEV Go to the /dev directory and create device nodes as follows: &prompt.root; cd /dev &prompt.root; ./MAKEDEV kbd0 kbd1 Edit /etc/rc.conf and add the following lines: usbd_enable="YES" usbd_flags="" If you want to use a USB keyboard in FreeBSD 4.X or later, you just need to enable USB support in /etc/rc.conf. Once you have USB keyboard support enabled on your system, 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/null Note 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. We recommend connecting the keyboard before starting the system and leaving 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 file In FreeBSD 3.0 or before, add: device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5 vector mseintr In FreeBSD 3.X, the line should be: device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5 And in FreeBSD 4.X and later, the line should read: device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c irq5 Bus 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? The PS/2 mouse is supported out-of-the-box in all recent versions of FreeBSD. The necessary device driver, psm, is included in the GENERIC kernel. If your custom kernel does not have this, add the appropriate following line 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 psmintr In FreeBSD 3.1 or later, the line should be: device psm0 at isa? tty irq 12 In FreeBSD 4.0 or later, the line should be: device psm0 at atkbdc? irq 12 Once the kernel detects 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 psm0 when 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 use a mouse in any way outside the X Window system? If you are using the default console driver, &man.syscons.4;, you can use a mouse pointer in text consoles to cut & paste text. Run the mouse daemon, &man.moused.8;, and turn on the mouse pointer in the virtual console: &prompt.root; moused -p /dev/xxxx -t yyyy &prompt.root; vidcontrol -m on Where xxxx is the mouse device name and yyyy is a protocol type for the mouse. The mouse daemon can automatically determine the protocol type of most mice, except old serial mice. Specify the auto protocol to invoke automatic detection. If automatic detection does not work, see the &man.moused.8; manual page for a list of supported protocol types. If you have a PS/2 mouse, just add moused_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf to start the mouse daemon at boot-time. Additionally, if you would like to use the mouse daemon on all virtual terminals instead of just the console, add allscreens_flags="-m on" to /etc/rc.conf. When the mouse daemon is running, access to the mouse must be coordinated between the mouse daemon and other programs such as X Windows. Refer to the FAQ Why does my mouse not work with X? for more details 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 the 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) to paste it at the text cursor. Pressing button 3 (right button) will extend the selected region of text. If your mouse does not have a middle button, you may wish to emulate one or remap buttons using mouse daemon 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 ums In versions of FreeBSD before 4.0, use this instead: controller uhci0 controller ohci0 controller usb0 device ums0 Go to the /dev directory and create a device node as follows: &prompt.root; cd /dev &prompt.root; ./MAKEDEV ums0 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. 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. 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 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 100 Which 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#micron 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 like pnp 1 0 enable os irq0 3 drq0 0 port0 0x2f8 to 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: Does FreeBSD support Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)? Yes. SMP is not enabled in the GENERIC kernel, so you must recompile your kernel to enable SMP. Take a look at /sys/i386/conf/LINT to learn 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. Troubleshooting What 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 3 and changing the values of AWRE and ARRE from 0 to 1:- AWRE (Auto Write Reallocation Enbld): 1 ARRE (Auto Read Reallocation Enbld): 1 The 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 type eisa 12 quit at 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. 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 FAQ My 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_*.db What 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=1 The option of &man.sysctl.8; is deprecated and silently ignored in &os; 4.4-RELEASE and all newer versions. You can safely ommit it when setting options with sysctl as shown above. This 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 snd1 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. 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 cards Why 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 0x01 The 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 = audio Here, 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 line static 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.X Why 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 Hz You can confirm this by checking the kern.timecounter.hardware &man.sysctl.3;. &prompt.root; sysctl kern.timecounter.hardware kern.timecounter.hardware: TSC The 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 -> i8254 Your 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=i8254 Why 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 5000/250/60 Press 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 Applications This 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 + URL="&url.main;/commercial/index.html">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 page or sales@apps2go.com or support@apps2go.com or phone (817) 431 8775 or +1 817 431-8775 Contact 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 + 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 page or sales@metrolink.com or tech@metrolink.com or phone (954) 938-0283 or +1 954 938-0283 The 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 page or sales@xig.com or support@xig.com or phone (800) 946 7433 or +1 303 298-7478. Are there any Database systems for FreeBSD? Yes! See the + URL="&url.main;/commercial/software_bycat.html#CATEGORY_DATABASE"> Commercial Vendors section of FreeBSD's Web site. Also see the + URL="&url.main;/ports/databases.html"> Databases section of the Ports collection. Can I run Oracle on FreeBSD? Yes. The following pages tell you exactly how to set up Linux-Oracle on FreeBSD: http://www.scc.nl/~marcel/howto-oracle.html http://www.lf.net/lf/pi/oracle/install-linux-oracle-on-freebsd User Applications So, where are all the user applications? Please take a look at the ports page + URL="&url.main;/ports/index.html">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 work on the 4.X and 5.X branches. 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 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-current or 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. 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_EMULATE You will need to remove the MATH_EMULATE option when you do this. 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, www/apache13-fp, is available in the ports tree. Does FreeBSD support Java? Yes. Please see + URL="&url.main;/java/index.html"> 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 + 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 clean If 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/myscript The 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. How do I create audio CDs from my MIDI files? To create audio CDs from MIDI files, first install audio/timidity++ from ports then install manually the GUS patches set by Eric A. Welsh, available at . After timidity++ has been installed properly, midi files may be converted to wav's with the following command line: &prompt.user; timidity -Ow -s 44100 -o /tmp/juke/01.wav 01.mid The wav files can then be converted to other formats or burned onto audio CDs, as described in the FreeBSD Handbook. Kernel Configuration I 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=-g You 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 siointr Why 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. How can I verify which scheduler is in use on a running system? Just type: &prompt.root; sysctl kern.quantum If you see unknown oid 'kern.quantum' it means that the current scheduler is SCHED_ULE, however, if you see kern.quantum: 100000 then the original scheduler SCHED_4BSD is the current selection. What is 'kern.quantum'? kern.quantum is the maximum number of ticks a process can run without being preempted. It is specific to the 4BSD scheduler, so you can use its presence or absence to determine which scheduler is in use. Disks, Filesystems, and Boot Loaders How 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=15 Alternatively, the undocumented DOS feature C:\> fdisk /mbr will 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 format This 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 label This 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 UNIX UFS 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. Linux FreeBSD supports ext2fs partitions. See &man.mount.ext2fs.8; for more information. NT FreeBSD includes a read-only NTFS driver. For more information, see &man.mount.ntfs.8;. 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/e You 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? 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" 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. /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. Do not simply copy /boot/boot0 instead of /boot/boot1; you will overwrite your partition table and render your computer un-bootable! 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=FreeBSD In 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)/kernel On 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 /floppy if it is a floppy, or this: &prompt.root; mount -t msdos /dev/da2s4 /zip for 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 auto You 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/rda2c and mount it: &prompt.root; mount /dev/da2c /zip and 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 0 Why 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=1 As 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/fd0 To allow users in the group operator to mount the CDROM drive, use: &prompt.root; chgrp operator /dev/cd0c &prompt.root; chmod 640 /dev/cd0c Finally, 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-point Users 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-point Unmounting the device is simple: &prompt.user; umount ~/my-mount-point Enabling 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 Administration Where are the system start-up configuration files? The primary configuration file is /etc/defaults/rc.conf (see &man.rc.conf.5;) System startup scripts such as /etc/rc and /etc/rc.d (see &man.rc.8;) just include this file. 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 included DNS server, all you need to do is: &prompt.root; echo named_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf To start up local services, place shell scripts in the /usr/local/etc/rc.d directory. These shell scripts should be set executable, and end with a .sh. How do I add a user easily? Use the &man.adduser.8; command, or the &man.pw.8; command for more complicated situations. To remove the user, use the &man.rmuser.8; command or, if necessary, &man.pw.8;. 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/crontab This 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 -r Next 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 2001 The 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: Filesystem Quota file /usr /usr/admin/quotas /home /home/admin/quotas … … Does FreeBSD support System V IPC primitives? Yes, FreeBSD supports System V-style IPC, including shared memory, messages and semaphores. Versions of FreeBSD later than 3.2 support System V IPC in the GENERIC kernel. In earlier versions of FreeBSD, enable this support by adding the following lines to your kernel config. options SYSVSHM # enable shared memory options SYSVSEM # enable for semaphores options SYSVMSG # enable for messaging Recompile and install your kernel. 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) build and install a new kernel with the following option. options SC_DISABLE_REBOOT in the configuration file. If you use the PCVT console driver, use the following kernel configuration line instead. options PCVT_CTRL_ALT_DEL 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-file dos-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.sh Alternately, you can remove all MAKE_KERBEROS options from /etc/make.conf and rebuild world. What happened to /dev/MAKEDEV? FreeBSD 5.X uses the &man.devfs.8; device-on-demand system. Device drivers automatically create new device nodes as they are needed, obsoleting /dev/MAKEDEV. If you are running FreeBSD 4.X or earlier and /dev/MAKEDEV is missing, then you really do have a problem. Grab a copy from the system source code, probably in /usr/src/etc/MAKEDEV. 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 line pseudo-device pty 256 in 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 like ttyqc none network The 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 snd0 You 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; exit 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.securelevel You 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.securelevel You 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. What do the various memory states displayed by top mean? Active: pages recently statistically used. Inactive: pages recently statistically unused. Cache: (most often) pages that have percolated from inactive to a status where they maintain their data, but can often be immediately reused (either with their old association, or reused with a new association.) There can be certain immediate transition from active to 'cache' state if the page is known to be clean (unmodified), but that transition is a matter of policy, depending upon the algorithm choice of the VM system maintainer. Free: pages without data content, and can be immediately used in certain circumstances where cache pages might be ineligible. Free pages can be reused at interrupt or process state. Wired: pages that are fixed into memory, usually for kernel purposes, but also sometimes for special use in processes. Pages are most often written to disk (sort of a VM sync) when they are in the 'inactive' state, but 'active' pages can also be synced (but requires the availability of certain CPU features.) This depends upon the CPU tracking of the 'modified' bit being available, and in certain situations there can be an advantage for a block of VM pages to be synced, whether they are active or inactive. In most common cases, it is best to think of the 'inactive' queue to be a queue of relatively unused pages that might or might not be in the process of being written to disk. 'Cached' pages are already 'synced', not mapped, but available for immediate process use with their old association or with a new association. Free pages are available at interrupt level, but cached or free pages can be used at process state for reuse. Cache pages aren't adequately locked to be available at interrupt level. There are some other flags (e.g. Busy flag or busy count) that might modify some of the rules that I described. How much free memory is available? There are a couple of kinds of free memory. One kind is the amount of memory immediately available without paging anything else out. That is approximately the size of cache queue + size of free queue (with a derating factor, depending upon system tuning.) Another kind of free memory is the total amount of VM space. That can be complex, but is dependent upon the amount of swap space and memory. Other kinds of free memory descriptions are also possible, but it is relatively useless to define these, but rather it is important to make sure that the paging rate is kept low, and to avoid running out of swap space. What is /var/empty? I can not delete it! /var/empty is a directory that the &man.sshd.8; program uses when performing privilege separation. The /var/empty directory is empty, owned by root and has the schg flag set. Although it is not recommended to delete this directory, to do so you will need to unset the schg flag first. See the &man.chflags.1; manual page for more information (and bear in mind the answer to the question on unsetting the schg flag). The X Window System and Virtual Consoles I 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 probably running at a raised securelevel. It is not possible to start X at a raised securelevel. To see why, look at the &man.init.8; manual 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 mouse My 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 Events The 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 Events To 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. <quote>Pointer</quote> Section for Wheeled Mouse in XFree86 3.3.x series XF86Config with moused Translation Section "Pointer" Protocol "SysMouse" Device "/dev/sysmouse" Buttons 5 EndSection <quote>InputDevice</quote> Section for Wheeled Mouse in XFree86 4.x series XF86Config with X Server Translation Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/sysmouse" Option "Buttons" "5" EndSection <quote>.emacs</quote> 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 Events If 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. <quote>Pointer</quote> Section for Wheeled Mouse in <filename>XF86Config</filename> with X Server Translation Section "Pointer" Protocol "IntelliMouse" Device "/dev/psm0" ZAxisMapping 4 5 EndSection <quote>InputDevice</quote> Section for Wheeled Mouse in XFree86 4.x series XF86Config with X Server Translation Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psm0" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection <quote>.emacs</quote> 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 imwheel Next, 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: <application>Emacs</application> Configuration for <application>Imwheel</application> ;;; 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 section For XEmacs, add the following to your ~/.emacs file instead: <application>XEmacs</application> Configuration for <application>Imwheel</application> ;;; For imwheel (mwheel-install) (setq mwheel-follow-mouse t) ;;; end imwheel section Run Imwheel You 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. How do I use remote X displays? For security reasons, the default setting is to not allow a machine to remotely open a window. To enable this feature, simply start X with the optional argument: &prompt.user; startx -listen_tcp 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 ServerNumLock What 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 secure Use 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 secure to: ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure If 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 vty12 On 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 1 It 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 Ctrl Alt Fn to switch back to a virtual console. Ctrl Alt F1 would return you to the first virtual console. Once you are back to a text console, you can then use Alt Fn 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 Alt F9 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 vt4 The 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/console is 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 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: -c Then, in the UserConfig command line, type: UserConfig> flags psm0 0x100 UserConfig> quit Why 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. 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: -c Then, in the UserConfig command line, type: UserConfig> flags psm0 0x04 UserConfig> quit See 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= 4 How 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 3.1 The 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 autoboot FreeBSD 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 start and 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 . 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 are 115 - Windows key, between the left-hand Ctrl and Alt keys 116 - Windows key, to the right of the AltGr key 117 - Menu key, to the left of the right-hand Ctrl key To 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 line xmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprc to 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 = F15 If 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 Nop How 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. Networking Where 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 booting Can 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 Windows box to the Internet via FreeBSD? Typically, people who ask this question have two PC's at home, one with FreeBSD and one with some version of Windows; the idea is to use the FreeBSD box to connect to the Internet and then be able to access the Internet from the Windows box through the FreeBSD box. This is really just a special case of the previous question and works perfectly well. If you're using dialup to connect to the Internet 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 or the Handbook entry on user PPP. If you are using kernel-mode PPP or have an Ethernet connection to the Internet, you need to use &man.natd.8;. Please look at the natd section of the Handbook for a tutorial. 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? Yes. If you want to use NAT over a user PPP connection, please see the Handbook entry on user PPP. If you want to use NAT over some other sort of network connection, please look at the natd section of the Handbook. 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 0xffffffff Otherwise, just specify the network address and netmask as usual: &prompt.root; ifconfig ed0 alias 172.16.141.5 netmask 0xffffff00 How 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 /mnt Why 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 /mnt Why 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=NO Xylogic's Annex boxes are also broken in this regard and you must use the above change to connect through them. How do I enable IP multicast support? FreeBSD supports multicast host operations by default. If you want your box to run as a multicast router, you need to recompile your kernel with the MROUTING option and run &man.mrouted.8;. FreeBSD 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 chipset Vendor Model ASUS PCI-L101-TB Accton ENI1203 Cogent EM960PCI Compex ENET32-PCI D-Link DE-530 Dayna DP1203, DP2100 DEC DE435, DE450 Danpex EN-9400P3 JCIS Condor JC1260 Linksys EtherPCI Mylex LNP101 SMC EtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332) SMC EtherPower (Model 8432) TopWare TE-3500P Znyx (2.2.x) ZX312, ZX314, ZX342, ZX345, ZX346, ZX348 Znyx (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 line search foo.example.org example.org instead of the previous domain foo.example.org into 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 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 any You 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 ipfw fwd 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 21 When 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 + url="&url.main;/ports/index.html">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.com ftp where 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 is not in your kernel. Add this to your kernel config file and build a new kernel: pseudo-device bpf # Berkeley Packet Filter On FreeBSD 4.X and earlier, you must also create the device node. After rebooting, go to the /dev directory and run: &prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV bpf0 Please see the Handbook entry on device nodes for more information on managing 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=300 If 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=0 Finally, 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 found Errors 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. Security What 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, and alter &man.ipfirewall.4; rules. To check the status of the securelevel on a running system, simply execute the following command: &prompt.root; sysctl kern.securelevel The 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 the &a.security;. Please search the archives here for an + url="&url.main;/search/index.html">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. BIND (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 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/suidperl If 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. PPP I 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 command set log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp command This 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.log and 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 localhost Otherwise, 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 tun0 This 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 the 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 /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 saying delete ALL from 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 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 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 HISADDR Refer 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 line set timeout NNN where 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 line disable lqr Why 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 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 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 active It 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 passive This 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 3 This 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 the 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 &man.ppp.8; waits for the peer to begin negotiations. Alternatively, the set openmode active N command (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 line disable pred1 Why 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 line enable lqr LQR 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/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 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 0/0 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, &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 using email with a dialup connection in the FreeBSD Handbook 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')dnl This 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 pred1 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 +connect This 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 OK or set phone 1234567 set dial "\"\" ATZ OK ATDT\\T" resulting in the following sequence: ATZ OK ATDT1234567 Why 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/ppp You 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 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 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 Call nat port udp internal :65000 65000 Manually 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 Life nat port udp internal:27005 27015 PCAnywhere 8.0 nat port udp internal:5632 5632 nat port tcp internal:5631 5631 Quake nat port udp internal:6112 6112 Alternatively, you may want to take a look at www.battle.net for Quake proxy support. Quake 2 nat port udp internal:27901 27910 nat port udp internal:60021 60021 nat port udp internal:60040 60040 Red Alert nat port udp internal:8675 8675 nat port udp internal:5009 5009 What 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\MaxMTU It 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 Communications This 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 sio after 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 16550A This 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. 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 siointr The 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/ttyd1 When 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 ixoff A 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 57600 Now, 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 &W See 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 insecure This 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 1 This 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 ttyd1 How 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 secure This 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/tip My 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=none Use 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 cuaa0 Or use cu as root with the following command: &prompt.root; cu -lline -sspeed with 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-char Why 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. Miscellaneous Questions FreeBSD 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 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 bar However, 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. Can I run DOS binaries under FreeBSD? Yes, you can use the integrated doscmd DOS emulation program to run a subset of DOS commands. If doscmd will not suffice, the add-on utility emulators/pcemu emulates an 8088 and enough BIOS services to run many DOS text mode applications. It requires the X Window System. 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 SunOS What 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 CVSup What 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 it is 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, 1999 What 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 Funnies How 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 Topics How 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. (Earlier branches are only changed very rarely, which is why there are only three active branches of development): RELENG_3 AKA 3.X-STABLE RELENG_4 AKA 4-STABLE HEAD AKA -CURRENT AKA 5.X-CURRENT HEAD 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.X development stream and the 4-STABLE branch, RELENG_4, forked off from -CURRENT in Mar 2000. 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 isn't cvsup.FreeBSD.org a round robin DNS entry to share the load amongst the various CVSup servers? While CVSup mirrors update from the master CVSup server hourly, this update might happen at any time during the hour. This means that some servers have newer code than others, even though all servers have code that is less than an hour old. If cvsup.FreeBSD.org was a round robin DNS entry that simply redirected users to a random CVSup server, running CVSup twice in a row could download code older than the code already on the system. 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 &man.split.1; 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.org In 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? &os.current; after February 2003 has a facility for dynamically and automatically allocating major numbers for device drivers at runtime. This mechanism is highly preferred to the older procedure of statically allocating device numbers. Some comments on this subject can be found in src/sys/conf/majors. If you are forced for some reason to use a static major number, the procedure for obtaining one 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 the &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 1998 How 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.org Ben 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 install reboot The &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) where Note 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 */ #endif To 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 Team If 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 formatting Jim Lowe Multicast information &a.pds; FreeBSD FAQ typing machine slavey The FreeBSD Team Kvetching, moaning, submitting data And to any others we have forgotten, apologies and heartfelt thanks! &bibliography; diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/book.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/book.sgml index 3fb3f086fa..d26fde693a 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/book.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/book.sgml @@ -1,307 +1,309 @@ %authors; %mailing-lists; %man; + +%urls; %chapters; ]> FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors Nik Clayton
nik@FreeBSD.org
 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Nik Clayton $FreeBSD$ $FreeBSD$ Redistribution and use in source (SGML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: Redistributions of source code (SGML DocBook) must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY NIK CLAYTON "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL NIK CLAYTON BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. Thank you for becoming a part of the FreeBSD Documentation Project. Your contribution is extremely valuable. This primer covers everything you will need to know in order to start contributing to the FreeBSD Documentation Project, from the tools and software you will be using (both mandatory and recommended) to the philosophy behind the Documentation Project. This document is a work in progress, and is not complete. Sections that are known to be incomplete are indicated with a * in their name. Preface Shell Prompts The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt. The examples will use this prompt to indicate which user you should be running the example as. User Prompt Normal user &prompt.user; root &prompt.root; Typographic Conventions The following table describes the typographic conventions used in this book. Meaning Examples The name of commands, files, and directories. On screen computer output. Edit your .login file.Use ls -a to list all files.You have mail. What you type, when contrasted with on-screen computer output. &prompt.user; su Password: Manual page references. Use su 1 to change user names. User and group names Only root can do this. Emphasis You must do this. Command line variables; replace with the real name or variable. To delete a file, type rm filename Environment variables $HOME is your home directory. Notes, tips, important information, warnings, and examples Within the text appear notes, warnings, and examples. Notes are represented like this, and contain information that you should take note of, as it may affect what you do. Tips are represented like this, and contain information that you might find useful, or lead to an easier way to do something. Important information is represented like this. Typically they flag extra steps you may need to carry out. Warnings are represented like this, and contain information warning you about possible damage if you do not follow the instructions. This damage may be physical, to your hardware or to you, or it may be non-physical, such as the inadvertent deletion of important files. A sample example Examples are represented like this, and typically contain examples you should walk through, or show you what the results of a particular action should be. Acknowledgments My thanks to Sue Blake, Patrick Durusau, Jon Hamilton, Peter Flynn, and Christopher Maden, who took the time to read early drafts of this document and offer many valuable comments and criticisms. &chap.overview; &chap.tools; &chap.sgml-primer; &chap.sgml-markup; &chap.stylesheets; &chap.structure; &chap.doc-build; &chap.the-website; &chap.translations; &chap.writing-style; &chap.psgml-mode; &chap.see-also; &app.examples; diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/overview/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/overview/chapter.sgml index 4ca7dfa1ed..8674617514 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/overview/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/overview/chapter.sgml @@ -1,300 +1,300 @@ Overview Welcome to the FreeBSD Documentation Project. Good quality documentation is very important to the success of FreeBSD, and the FreeBSD Documentation Project (FDP) is how a lot of that documentation is produced. Your contributions are very valuable. This document's main purpose is to clearly explain how the FDP is organized, how to write and submit documentation to the FDP, and how to effectively use the tools available to you when writing documentation. Membership Everyone is welcome to join the FDP. There is no minimum membership requirement, no quota of documentation you need to produce per month. All you need to do is subscribe to the &a.doc;. After you have finished reading this document you should: Know which documentation is maintained by the FDP. Be able to read and understand the SGML source code for the documentation maintained by the FDP. Be able to make changes to the documentation. Be able to submit your changes back for review and eventual inclusion in the FreeBSD documentation. The FreeBSD Documentation Set The FDP is responsible for four categories of FreeBSD documentation. Manual pages The English language system manual pages are not written by the FDP, as they are part of the base system. However, the FDP can (and has) re-worded parts of existing manual pages to make them clearer, or to correct inaccuracies. The translation teams are responsible for translating the system manual pages into different languages. These translations are kept within the FDP. FAQ The FAQ aims to address (in short question and answer format) questions that are asked, or should be asked, on the various mailing lists and newsgroups devoted to FreeBSD. The format does not permit long and comprehensive answers. Handbook The Handbook aims to be the comprehensive on-line resource and reference for FreeBSD users. Web site This is the main FreeBSD presence on the World Wide Web, visible at http://www.FreeBSD.org/ + url="&url.main;/index.html">http://www.FreeBSD.org/ and many mirrors around the world. The web site is many people's first exposure to FreeBSD. These four groups of documentation are all available in the FreeBSD CVS tree. This means that the logs of changes to these files are visible to anyone, and anyone can use a program such as CVSup or CTM to keep local copies of this documentation. In addition, many people have written tutorials or other web sites relating to FreeBSD. Some of these are stored in the CVS repository as well (where the author has agreed to this). In other cases the author has decided to keep his documentation separate from the main FreeBSD repository. The FDP endeavours to provide links to as much of this documentation as possible. Before you start This document assumes that you already know: How to maintain an up-to-date local copy of the FreeBSD documentation by maintaining a local copy of the FreeBSD CVS repository (using CVS and either CVSup or CTM) or by using CVSup to download just a checked-out copy. How to download and install new software using either the FreeBSD Ports system or &man.pkg.add.1;. Quick Start If you just want to get going, and feel confident you can pick things up as you go along, follow these instructions. Install the textproc/docproj meta-port. &prompt.root; cd /usr/ports/textproc/docproj &prompt.root; make JADETEX=no install Get a local copy of the FreeBSD doc tree. Either use CVSup in checkout mode to do this, or get a full copy of the CVS repository locally. If you have the CVS repository locally then as a minimum you will need to checkout the doc/share, and doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/share directories. &prompt.user; cvs checkout doc/share &prompt.user; cvs checkout doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/share If you have plenty of disk space then you could check out everything. &prompt.user; cvs checkout doc If you are preparing a change to an existing book or article, check it out of the repository as necessary. If you are planning on contributing a new book or article then use an existing one as a guide. For example, if you want to contribute a new article about setting up a VPN between FreeBSD and Windows 2000 you might do the following. Check out the articles directory. &prompt.user; cvs checkout doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles Copy an existing article to use as a template. In this case, you have decided that your new article belongs in a directory called vpn-w2k. &prompt.user; cd doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles &prompt.user; cp -r committers-guide vpn-w2k If you wanted to edit an existing document, such as the FAQ, which is in doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq you would check it out of the repository like this. &prompt.user; cvs checkout doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq Edit the .sgml files using your editor of choice. Test the markup using the lint target. This will quickly find any errors in the document without actually performing the time-consuming transformation. &prompt.user; make lint When you are ready to actually build the document, you may specify a single format or a list of formats in the FORMATS variable. Currently, html, html-split, txt, ps, pdf, and rtf are supported. The most up to date list of supported formats is listed at the top of the doc/share/mk/doc.docbook.mk file. Make sure to use quotes around the list of formats when you build more than one format with a single command. For example, to convert the document to html only, you would use: &prompt.user; make FORMATS=html But when you want to convert the document to both html and txt format, you could use either two separate &man.make.1; runs, with: &prompt.user; make FORMATS=html &prompt.user; make FORMATS=txt or, you can do it in one command: &prompt.user; make FORMATS="html txt" Submit your changes using &man.send-pr.1;. diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/see-also/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/see-also/chapter.sgml index 7c5a57b981..0ecf44a66c 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/see-also/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/see-also/chapter.sgml @@ -1,134 +1,134 @@ See Also This document is deliberately not an exhaustive discussion of SGML, the DTDs listed, and the FreeBSD Documentation Project. For more information about these, you are encouraged to see the following web sites. The FreeBSD Documentation Project - The FreeBSD + The FreeBSD Documentation Project web pages The FreeBSD Handbook SGML The SGML/XML web page, a comprehensive SGML resource Gentle introduction to SGML HTML The World Wide Web Consortium The HTML 4.0 specification DocBook The DocBook Technical Committee, maintainers of the DocBook DTD DocBook: The Definitive Guide, the online documentation for the DocBook DTD. The DocBook Open Repository contains DSSSL stylesheets and other resources for people using DocBook. The Linux Documentation Project The Linux Documentation Project web pages diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/sgml-markup/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/sgml-markup/chapter.sgml index c62e3a8338..4b53522b6b 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/sgml-markup/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/sgml-markup/chapter.sgml @@ -1,2692 +1,2692 @@ SGML Markup This chapter describes the two markup languages you will encounter when you contribute to the FreeBSD documentation project. Each section describes the markup language, and details the markup that you are likely to want to use, or that is already in use. These markup languages contain a large number of elements, and it can be confusing sometimes to know which element to use for a particular situation. This section goes through the elements you are most likely to need, and gives examples of how you would use them. This is not an exhaustive list of elements, since that would just reiterate the documentation for each language. The aim of this section is to list those elements more likely to be useful to you. If you have a question about how best to markup a particular piece of content, please post it to the &a.doc;. Inline vs. block In the remainder of this document, when describing elements, inline means that the element can occur within a block element, and does not cause a line break. A block element, by comparison, will cause a line break (and other processing) when it is encountered. HTML HTML, the HyperText Markup Language, is the markup language of choice on the World Wide Web. More information can be found at <URL:>. HTML is used to markup pages on the FreeBSD web site. It should not (generally) be used to mark up other documentation, since DocBook offers a far richer set of elements to choose from. Consequently, you will normally only encounter HTML pages if you are writing for the web site. HTML has gone through a number of versions, 1, 2, 3.0, 3.2, and the latest, 4.0 (available in both strict and loose variants). The HTML DTDs are available from the ports collection in the textproc/html port. They are automatically installed as part of the textproc/docproj port. Formal Public Identifier (FPI) There are a number of HTML FPIs, depending upon the version (also known as the level) of HTML that you want to declare your document to be compliant with. The majority of HTML documents on the FreeBSD web site comply with the loose version of HTML 4.0. PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" Sectional elements An HTML document is normally split into two sections. The first section, called the head, contains meta-information about the document, such as its title, the name of the author, the parent document, and so on. The second section, the body, contains the content that will be displayed to the user. These sections are indicated with head and body elements respectively. These elements are contained within the top-level html element. Normal HTML document structure <html> <head> <title>The document's title</title> </head> <body> … </body> </html> Block elements Headings HTML allows you to denote headings in your document, at up to six different levels. The largest and most prominent heading is h1, then h2, continuing down to h6. The element's content is the text of the heading. <sgmltag>h1</sgmltag>, <sgmltag>h2</sgmltag>, etc. Use: First section

This is the heading for the first section

This is the heading for the first sub-section

This is the heading for the second section

]]> Generally, an HTML page should have one first level heading (h1). This can contain many second level headings (h2), which can in turn contain many third level headings. Each hn element should have the same element, but one further up the hierarchy, preceding it. Leaving gaps in the numbering is to be avoided. Bad ordering of <sgmltag>h<replaceable>n</replaceable></sgmltag> elements Use: First section

Sub-section

]]> Paragraphs HTML supports a single paragraph element, p. <sgmltag>p</sgmltag> Use: This is a paragraph. It can contain just about any other element.

]]> Block quotations A block quotation is an extended quotation from another document that should not appear within the current paragraph. <sgmltag>blockquote</sgmltag> Use: A small excerpt from the US Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
]]> Lists You can present the user with three types of lists, ordered, unordered, and definition. Typically, each entry in an ordered list will be numbered, while each entry in an unordered list will be preceded by a bullet point. Definition lists are composed of two sections for each entry. The first section is the term being defined, and the second section is the definition of the term. Ordered lists are indicated by the ol element, unordered lists by the ul element, and definition lists by the dl element. Ordered and unordered lists contain listitems, indicated by the li element. A listitem can contain textual content, or it may be further wrapped in one or more p elements. Definition lists contain definition terms (dt) and definition descriptions (dd). A definition term can only contain inline elements. A definition description can contain other block elements. <sgmltag>ul</sgmltag> and <sgmltag>ol</sgmltag> Use: An unordered list. Listitems will probably be preceded by bullets.

  • First item
  • Second item
  • Third item

An ordered list, with list items consisting of multiple paragraphs. Each item (note: not each paragraph) will be numbered.

  1. This is the first item. It only has one paragraph.

  2. This is the first paragraph of the second item.

    This is the second paragraph of the second item.

  3. This is the first and only paragraph of the third item.

]]> Definition lists with <sgmltag>dl</sgmltag> Use:
Term 1

Paragraph 1 of definition 1.

Paragraph 2 of definition 1.

Term 2

Paragraph 1 of definition 2.

Term 3
Paragraph 1 of definition 3. Note that the <p> element is not required in the single paragraph case.
]]> Pre-formatted text You can indicate that text should be shown to the user exactly as it is in the file. Typically, this means that the text is shown in a fixed font, multiple spaces are not merged into one, and line breaks in the text are significant. In order to do this, wrap the content in the pre element. <sgmltag>pre</sgmltag> You could use pre to mark up an e-mail message; From: nik@FreeBSD.org To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: New documentation available There is a new copy of my primer for contributors to the FreeBSD Documentation Project available at Comments appreciated. N]]> Tables Most text-mode browsers (such as Lynx) do not render tables particularly effectively. If you are relying on the tabular display of your content, you should consider using alternative markup to prevent confusion. Mark up tabular information using the table element. A table consists of one or more table rows (tr), each containing one or more cells of table data (td). Each cell can contain other block elements, such as paragraphs or lists. It can also contain another table (this nesting can repeat indefinitely). If the cell only contains one paragraph then you do not need to include the p element. Simple use of <sgmltag>table</sgmltag> Use: This is a simple 2x2 table.

Top left cell Top right cell
Bottom left cell Bottom right cell
]]> A cell can span multiple rows and columns. To indicate this, add the rowspan and/or colspan attributes, with values indicating the number of rows of columns that should be spanned. Using <literal>rowspan</literal> Use: One tall thin cell on the left, two short cells next to it on the right.

Long and thin
Top cell Bottom cell
]]> Using <literal>colspan</literal> Use: One long cell on top, two short cells below it.

Top cell
Bottom left cell Bottom right cell
]]> Using <literal>rowspan</literal> and <literal>colspan</literal> together Use: On a 3x3 grid, the top left block is a 2x2 set of cells merged into one. The other cells are normal.

Top left large cell Top right cell
Middle right cell
Bottom left cell Bottom middle cell Bottom right cell
]]> In-line elements Emphasising information You have two levels of emphasis available in HTML, em and strong. em is for a normal level of emphasis and strong indicates stronger emphasis. Typically, em is rendered in italic and strong is rendered in bold. This is not always the case, however, and you should not rely on it. <sgmltag>em</sgmltag> and <sgmltag>strong</sgmltag> Use: This has been emphasised, while this has been strongly emphasised.

]]> Bold and italics Because HTML includes presentational markup, you can also indicate that particular content should be rendered in bold or italic. The elements are b and i respectively. <sgmltag>b</sgmltag> and <sgmltag>i</sgmltag> This is in bold, while this is in italics.

]]> Indicating fixed pitch text If you have content that should be rendered in a fixed pitch (typewriter) typeface, use tt (for teletype). <sgmltag>tt</sgmltag> Use: This document was originally written by Nik Clayton, who can be reached by e-mail as nik@FreeBSD.org.

]]> Content size You can indicate that content should be shown in a larger or smaller font. There are three ways of doing this. Use big and small around the content you wish to change size. These tags can be nested, so <big><big>This is much bigger</big></big> is possible. Use font with the size attribute set to +1 or -1 respectively. This has the same effect as using big or small. However, the use of this approach is deprecated. Use font with the size attribute set to a number between 1 and 7. The default font size is 3. This approach is deprecated. <sgmltag>big</sgmltag>, <sgmltag>small</sgmltag>, and <sgmltag>font</sgmltag> The following fragments all do the same thing. This text is slightly smaller. But this text is slightly bigger.

This text is slightly smaller. But this text is slightly bigger

This text is slightly smaller. But this text is slightly bigger.

]]> Links Links are also in-line elements. Linking to other documents on the WWW In order to include a link to another document on the WWW you must know the URL of the document you want to link to. The link is indicated with a, and the href attribute contains the URL of the target document. The content of the element becomes the link, and is normally indicated to the user in some way (underlining, change of color, different mouse cursor when over the link, and so on). Using <literal><a href="..."></literal> Use: More information is available at the FreeBSD web site.

]]> These links will take the user to the top of the chosen document. Linking to other parts of documents Linking to a point within another document (or within the same document) requires that the document author include anchors that you can link to. Anchors are indicated with a and the name attribute instead of href. Using <literal><a name="..."></literal> Use: This paragraph can be referenced in other links with the name para1.

]]> To link to a named part of a document, write a normal link to that document, but include the name of the anchor after a # symbol. Linking to a named part of another document Assume that the para1 example resides in a document called foo.html. More information can be found in the first paragraph of foo.html.

]]> If you are linking to a named anchor within the same document then you can omit the document's URL, and just include the name of the anchor (with the preceding #). Linking to a named part of the same document Assume that the para1 example resides in this document More information can be found in the first paragraph of this document.

]]> DocBook DocBook was originally developed by HaL Computer Systems and O'Reilly & Associates to be a DTD for writing technical documentation A short history can be found under http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/docbook/intro.shtml. . Since 1998 it is maintained by the DocBook Technical Committee. As such, and unlike LinuxDoc and HTML, DocBook is very heavily oriented towards markup that describes what something is, rather than describing how it should be presented. <literal>formal</literal> vs. <literal>informal</literal> Some elements may exist in two forms, formal and informal. Typically, the formal version of the element will consist of a title followed by the informal version of the element. The informal version will not have a title. The DocBook DTD is available from the ports collection in the textproc/docbook port. It is automatically installed as part of the textproc/docproj port. FreeBSD extensions The FreeBSD Documentation Project has extended the DocBook DTD by adding some new elements. These elements serve to make some of the markup more precise. Where a FreeBSD specific element is listed below it is clearly marked. Throughout the rest of this document, the term DocBook is used to mean the FreeBSD extended DocBook DTD. There is nothing about these extensions that is FreeBSD specific, it was just felt that they were useful enhancements for this particular project. Should anyone from any of the other *nix camps (NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, …) be interested in collaborating on a standard DocBook extension set, please get in touch with &a.nik;. The FreeBSD extensions are not (currently) in the ports collection. They are stored in the FreeBSD CVS tree, as doc/share/sgml/freebsd.dtd. Formal Public Identifier (FPI) In compliance with the DocBook guidelines for writing FPIs for DocBook customisations, the FPI for the FreeBSD extended DocBook DTD is; PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" Document structure DocBook allows you to structure your documentation in several ways. In the FreeBSD Documentation Project we are using two primary types of DocBook document: the book and the article. A book is organized into chapters. This is a mandatory requirement. There may be parts between the book and the chapter to provide another layer of organisation. The Handbook is arranged in this way. A chapter may (or may not) contain one or more sections. These are indicated with the sect1 element. If a section contains another section then use the sect2 element, and so on, up to sect5. Chapters and sections contain the remainder of the content. An article is simpler than a book, and does not use chapters. Instead, the content of an article is organized into one or more sections, using the same sect1 (and sect2 and so on) elements that are used in books. Obviously, you should consider the nature of the documentation you are writing in order to decide whether it is best marked up as a book or an article. Articles are well suited to information that does not need to be broken down into several chapters, and that is, relatively speaking, quite short, at up to 20-25 pages of content. Books are best suited to information that can be broken up into several chapters, possibly with appendices and similar content as well. - The FreeBSD + The FreeBSD tutorials are all marked up as articles, while this document, the FreeBSD FAQ, and the FreeBSD Handbook are all marked up as books. Starting a book The content of the book is contained within the book element. As well as containing structural markup, this element can contain elements that include additional information about the book. This is either meta-information, used for reference purposes, or additional content used to produce a title page. This additional information should be contained within bookinfo. Boilerplate <sgmltag>book</sgmltag> with <sgmltag>bookinfo</sgmltag> <book> <bookinfo> <title>Your title here</title> <author> <firstname>Your first name</firstname> <surname>Your surname</surname> <affiliation> <address><email>Your e-mail address</email></address> </affiliation> </author> <copyright> <year>1998</year> <holder role="mailto:your e-mail address">Your name</holder> </copyright> <releaseinfo>$FreeBSD$</releaseinfo> <abstract> <para>Include an abstract of the book's contents here.</para> </abstract> </bookinfo> … </book> Starting an article The content of the article is contained within the article element. As well as containing structural markup, this element can contain elements that include additional information about the article. This is either meta-information, used for reference purposes, or additional content used to produce a title page. This additional information should be contained within articleinfo. Boilerplate <sgmltag>article</sgmltag> with <sgmltag>articleinfo</sgmltag> <article> <articleinfo> <title>Your title here</title> <author> <firstname>Your first name</firstname> <surname>Your surname</surname> <affiliation> <address><email>Your e-mail address</email></address> </affiliation> </author> <copyright> <year>1998</year> <holder role="mailto:your e-mail address">Your name</holder> </copyright> <releaseinfo>$FreeBSD$</releaseinfo> <abstract> <para>Include an abstract of the article's contents here.</para> </abstract> </articleinfo> … </article> Indicating chapters Use chapter to mark up your chapters. Each chapter has a mandatory title. Articles do not contain chapters, they are reserved for books. A simple chapter The chapter's title ... ]]> A chapter cannot be empty; it must contain elements in addition to title. If you need to include an empty chapter then just use an empty paragraph. Empty chapters This is an empty chapter ]]> Sections below chapters In books, chapters may (but do not need to) be broken up into sections, subsections, and so on. In articles, sections are the main structural element, and each article must contain at least one section. Use the sectn element. The n indicates the section number, which identifies the section level. The first sectn is sect1. You can have one or more of these in a chapter. They can contain one or more sect2 elements, and so on, down to sect5. Sections in chapters A sample chapter Some text in the chapter. First section (1.1) … Second section (1.2) First sub-section (1.2.1) First sub-sub-section (1.2.1.1) … Second sub-section (1.2.2) … ]]> This example includes section numbers in the section titles. You should not do this in your documents. Adding the section numbers is carried out by the stylesheets (of which more later), and you do not need to manage them yourself. Subdividing using <sgmltag>part</sgmltag>s You can introduce another layer of organisation between book and chapter with one or more parts. This cannot be done in an article. Introduction Overview ... What is FreeBSD? ... History ... ]]> Block elements Paragraphs DocBook supports three types of paragraphs: formalpara, para, and simpara. Most of the time you will only need to use para. formalpara includes a title element, and simpara disallows some elements from within para. Stick with para. <sgmltag>para</sgmltag> Use: This is a paragraph. It can contain just about any other element. ]]> Appearance: This is a paragraph. It can contain just about any other element. Block quotations A block quotation is an extended quotation from another document that should not appear within the current paragraph. You will probably only need it infrequently. Blockquotes can optionally contain a title and an attribution (or they can be left untitled and unattributed). <sgmltag>blockquote</sgmltag> Use: A small excerpt from the US Constitution;
Preamble to the Constitution of the United States Copied from a web site somewhere We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
]]> Appearance:
Preamble to the Constitution of the United States Copied from a web site somewhere We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Tips, notes, warnings, cautions, important information and sidebars. You may need to include extra information separate from the main body of the text. Typically this is meta information that the user should be aware of. Depending on the nature of the information, one of tip, note, warning, caution, and important should be used. Alternatively, if the information is related to the main text but is not one of the above, use sidebar. The circumstances in which to choose one of these elements over another is unclear. The DocBook documentation suggests; A Note is for information that should be heeded by all readers. An Important element is a variation on Note. A Caution is for information regarding possible data loss or software damage. A Warning is for information regarding possible hardware damage or injury to life or limb. <sgmltag>warning</sgmltag> Use: Installing FreeBSD may make you want to delete Windows from your hard disk. ]]> Installing FreeBSD may make you want to delete Windows from your hard disk. Lists and procedures You will often need to list pieces of information to the user, or present them with a number of steps that must be carried out in order to accomplish a particular goal. In order to do this, use itemizedlist, orderedlist, or procedureThere are other types of list element in DocBook, but we are not concerned with those at the moment. itemizedlist and orderedlist are similar to their counterparts in HTML, ul and ol. Each one consists of one or more listitem elements, and each listitem contains one or more block elements. The listitem elements are analogous to HTML's li tags. However, unlike HTML, they are required. procedure is slightly different. It consists of steps, which may in turn consists of more steps or substeps. Each step contains block elements. <sgmltag>itemizedlist</sgmltag>, <sgmltag>orderedlist</sgmltag>, and <sgmltag>procedure</sgmltag> Use: This is the first itemized item. This is the second itemized item. This is the first ordered item. This is the second ordered item. Do this. Then do this. And now do this. ]]> Appearance: This is the first itemized item. This is the second itemized item. This is the first ordered item. This is the second ordered item. Do this. Then do this. And now do this. Showing file samples If you want to show a fragment of a file (or perhaps a complete file) to the user, wrap it in the programlisting element. White space and line breaks within programlisting are significant. In particular, this means that the opening tag should appear on the same line as the first line of the output, and the closing tag should appear on the same line as the last line of the output, otherwise spurious blank lines may be included. <sgmltag>programlisting</sgmltag> Use: When you have finished, your program should look like this; #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { printf("hello, world\n"); }]]> Notice how the angle brackets in the #include line need to be referenced by their entities instead of being included literally. Appearance: When you have finished, your program should look like this; #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { printf("hello, world\n"); } Callouts A callout is a mechanism for referring back to an earlier piece of text or specific position within an earlier example without linking to it within the text. To do this, mark areas of interest in your example (programlisting, literallayout, or whatever) with the co element. Each element must have a unique id assigned to it. After the example include a calloutlist that refers back to the example and provides additional commentary. <sgmltag>co</sgmltag> and <sgmltag>calloutlist</sgmltag> When you have finished, your program should look like this; #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { printf("hello, world\n"); } Includes the standard IO header file. Specifies that main() returns an int. The printf() call that writes hello, world to standard output. ]]> Appearance: When you have finished, your program should look like this; #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { printf("hello, world\n"); } Includes the standard IO header file. Specifies that main() returns an int. The printf() call that writes hello, world to standard output. Tables Unlike HTML, you do not need to use tables for layout purposes, as the stylesheet handles those issues for you. Instead, just use tables for marking up tabular data. In general terms (and see the DocBook documentation for more detail) a table (which can be either formal or informal) consists of a table element. This contains at least one tgroup element, which specifies (as an attribute) the number of columns in this table group. Within the tablegroup you can then have one thead element, which contains elements for the table headings (column headings), and one tbody which contains the body of the table. Both tgroup and thead contain row elements, which in turn contain entry elements. Each entry element specifies one cell in the table. <sgmltag>informaltable</sgmltag> Use: This is column head 1 This is column head 2 Row 1, column 1 Row 1, column 2 Row 2, column 1 Row 2, column 2 ]]> Appearance: This is column head 1 This is column head 2 Row 1, column 1 Row 1, column 2 Row 2, column 1 Row 2, column 2 If you do not want a border around the table the frame attribute can be added to the informaltable element with a value of none (i.e., <informaltable frame="none">). Tables where <literal>frame="none"</literal> Appearance: This is column head 1 This is column head 2 Row 1, column 1 Row 1, column 2 Row 2, column 1 Row 2, column 2 Examples for the user to follow A lot of the time you need to show examples for the user to follow. Typically, these will consist of dialogs with the computer; the user types in a command, the user gets a response back, they type in another command, and so on. A number of distinct elements and entities come into play here. screen Everything the user sees in this example will be on the computer screen, so the next element is screen. Within screen, white space is significant. prompt, &prompt.root; and &prompt.user; Some of the things the user will be seeing on the screen are prompts from the computer (either from the operating system, command shell, or application). These should be marked up using prompt. As a special case, the two shell prompts for the normal user and the root user have been provided as entities. Every time you want to indicate the user is at a shell prompt, use one of &prompt.root; and &prompt.user; as necessary. They do not need to be inside prompt. &prompt.root; and &prompt.user; are FreeBSD extensions to DocBook, and are not part of the original DTD. userinput When displaying text that the user should type in, wrap it in userinput tags. It will probably be displayed differently to the user. <sgmltag>screen</sgmltag>, <sgmltag>prompt</sgmltag>, and <sgmltag>userinput</sgmltag> Use: &prompt.user; ls -1 foo1 foo2 foo3 &prompt.user; ls -1 | grep foo2 foo2 &prompt.user; su Password: &prompt.root; cat foo2 This is the file called 'foo2']]> Appearance: &prompt.user; ls -1 foo1 foo2 foo3 &prompt.user; ls -1 | grep foo2 foo2 &prompt.user; su Password: &prompt.root; cat foo2 This is the file called 'foo2' Even though we are displaying the contents of the file foo2, it is not marked up as programlisting. Reserve programlisting for showing fragments of files outside the context of user actions. In-line elements Emphasising information When you want to emphasise a particular word or phrase, use emphasis. This may be presented as italic, or bold, or might be spoken differently with a text-to-speech system. There is no way to change the presentation of the emphasis within your document, no equivalent of HTML's b and i. If the information you are presenting is important then consider presenting it in important rather than emphasis. <sgmltag>emphasis</sgmltag> Use: FreeBSD is without doubt the premiere Unix like operating system for the Intel architecture.]]> Appearance: FreeBSD is without doubt the premiere Unix like operating system for the Intel architecture. Quotations To quote text from another document or source, or to denote a phrase that is used figuratively, use quote. Within a quote tag, you may use most of the markup tags available for normal text. Quotations Use: However, make sure that the search does not go beyond the boundary between local and public administration, as RFC 1535 calls it.]]> Appearance: However, make sure that the search does not go beyond the boundary between local and public administration, as RFC 1535 calls it. Keys, mouse buttons, and combinations To refer to a specific key on the keyboard, use keycap. To refer to a mouse button, use mousebutton. And to refer to combinations of key presses or mouse clicks, wrap them all in keycombo. keycombo has an attribute called action, which may be one of click, double-click, other, press, seq, or simul. The last two values denote whether the keys or buttons should be pressed in sequence, or simultaneously. The stylesheets automatically add any connecting symbols, such as +, between the key names, when wrapped in keycombo. Keys, mouse buttons, and combinations Use: To switch to the second virtual terminal, press Alt F1. To exit vi without saving your work, type Esc: q!. My window manager is configured so that Alt right mouse button is used to move windows.]]> Appearance: To switch to the second virtual terminal, press Alt F1. To exit vi without saving your work, type Esc: q!. My window manager is configured so that Alt right mouse button is used to move windows. Applications, commands, options, and cites You will frequently want to refer to both applications and commands when writing for the Handbook. The distinction between them is simple: an application is the name for a suite (or possibly just 1) of programs that fulfil a particular task. A command is the name of a program that the user can run. In addition, you will occasionally need to list one or more of the options that a command might take. Finally, you will often want to list a command with its manual section number, in the command(number) format so common in Unix manuals. Mark up application names with application. When you want to list a command with its manual section number (which should be most of the time) the DocBook element is citerefentry. This will contain a further two elements, refentrytitle and manvolnum. The content of refentrytitle is the name of the command, and the content of manvolnum is the manual page section. This can be cumbersome to write, and so a series of general entities have been created to make this easier. Each entity takes the form &man.manual-page.manual-section;. The file that contains these entities is in doc/share/sgml/man-refs.ent, and can be referred to using this FPI: PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Manual Page Entities//EN" Therefore, the introduction to your documentation will probably look like this: <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" [ <!ENTITY % man PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Manual Page Entities//EN"> %man; … ]> Use command when you want to include a command name in-line but present it as something the user should type in. Use option to mark up a command's options. When referring to the same command multiple times in close proximity it is preferred to use the &man.command.section; notation to markup the first reference and use command to markup subsequent references. This makes the generated output, especially HTML, appear visually better. This can be confusing, and sometimes the choice is not always clear. Hopefully this example makes it clearer. Applications, commands, and options. Use: Sendmail is the most widely used Unix mail application. Sendmail includes the sendmail 8 , &man.mailq.8;, and &man.newaliases.8; programs. One of the command line parameters to sendmail 8 , , will display the current status of messages in the mail queue. Check this on the command line by running sendmail -bp.]]> Appearance: Sendmail is the most widely used Unix mail application. Sendmail includes the sendmail 8 , mailq 8 , and newaliases 8 programs. One of the command line parameters to sendmail 8 , , will display the current status of messages in the mail queue. Check this on the command line by running sendmail -bp. Notice how the &man.command.section; notation is easier to follow. Files, directories, extensions Whenever you wish to refer to the name of a file, a directory, or a file extension, use filename. <sgmltag>filename</sgmltag> Use: The SGML source for the Handbook in English can be found in /usr/doc/en/handbook/. The first file is called handbook.sgml in that directory. You should also see a Makefile and a number of files with a .ent extension.]]> Appearance: The SGML source for the Handbook in English can be found in /usr/doc/en/handbook/. The first file is called handbook.sgml in that directory. You should also see a Makefile and a number of files with a .ent extension. The name of ports FreeBSD extension These elements are part of the FreeBSD extension to DocBook, and do not exist in the original DocBook DTD. You might need to include the name of a program from the FreeBSD Ports Collection in the documentation. Use the filename tag with the role attribute set to package to identify these. Since ports can be installed in any number of locations, only include the category and the port name; do not include /usr/ports. <sgmltag>filename</sgmltag> tag with <literal>package</literal> role Use: Install the net/ethereal port to view network traffic.]]> Appearance: Install the net/ethereal port to view network traffic. Devices FreeBSD extension These elements are part of the FreeBSD extension to DocBook, and do not exist in the original DocBook DTD. When referring to devices you have two choices. You can either refer to the device as it appears in /dev, or you can use the name of the device as it appears in the kernel. For this latter course, use devicename. Sometimes you will not have a choice. Some devices, such as networking cards, do not have entries in /dev, or the entries are markedly different from those entries. <sgmltag>devicename</sgmltag> Use: sio is used for serial communication in FreeBSD. sio manifests through a number of entries in /dev, including /dev/ttyd0 and /dev/cuaa0. By contrast, the networking devices, such as ed0 do not appear in /dev. In MS-DOS, the first floppy drive is referred to as a:. In FreeBSD it is /dev/fd0.]]> Appearance: sio is used for serial communication in FreeBSD. sio manifests through a number of entries in /dev, including /dev/ttyd0 and /dev/cuaa0. By contrast, the networking devices, such as ed0 do not appear in /dev. In MS-DOS, the first floppy drive is referred to as a:. In FreeBSD it is /dev/fd0. Hosts, domains, IP addresses, and so forth FreeBSD extension These elements are part of the FreeBSD extension to DocBook, and do not exist in the original DocBook DTD. You can markup identification information for networked computers (hosts) in several ways, depending on the nature of the information. All of them use hostid as the element, with the role attribute selecting the type of the marked up information. No role attribute, or role="hostname" With no role attribute (i.e., hostid.../hostid) the marked up information is the simple hostname, such as freefall or wcarchive. You can explicitly specify this with role="hostname". role="domainname" The text is a domain name, such as FreeBSD.org or ngo.org.uk. There is no hostname component. role="fqdn" The text is a Fully Qualified Domain Name, with both hostname and domain name parts. role="ipaddr" The text is an IP address, probably expressed as a dotted quad. role="ip6addr" The text is an IPv6 address. role="netmask" The text is a network mask, which might be expressed as a dotted quad, a hexadecimal string, or as a / followed by a number. role="mac" The text is an Ethernet MAC address, expressed as a series of 2 digit hexadecimal numbers separated by colons. <sgmltag>hostid</sgmltag> and roles Use: The local machine can always be referred to by the name localhost, which will have the IP address 127.0.0.1. The FreeBSD.org domain contains a number of different hosts, including freefall.FreeBSD.org and bento.FreeBSD.org. When adding an IP alias to an interface (using ifconfig) always use a netmask of 255.255.255.255 (which can also be expressed as 0xffffffff. The MAC address uniquely identifies every network card in existence. A typical MAC address looks like 08:00:20:87:ef:d0.]]> Appearance: The local machine can always be referred to by the name localhost, which will have the IP address 127.0.0.1. The FreeBSD.org domain contains a number of different hosts, including freefall.FreeBSD.org and bento.FreeBSD.org. When adding an IP alias to an interface (using ifconfig) always use a netmask of 255.255.255.255 (which can also be expressed as 0xffffffff. The MAC address uniquely identifies every network card in existence. A typical MAC address looks like 08:00:20:87:ef:d0. Usernames FreeBSD extension These elements are part of the FreeBSD extension to DocBook, and do not exist in the original DocBook DTD. When you need to refer to a specific username, such as root or bin, use username. <sgmltag>username</sgmltag> Use: To carry out most system administration functions you will need to be root.]]> Appearance: To carry out most system administration functions you will need to be root. Describing <filename>Makefile</filename>s FreeBSD extension These elements are part of the FreeBSD extension to DocBook, and do not exist in the original DocBook DTD. Two elements exist to describe parts of Makefiles, maketarget and makevar. maketarget identifies a build target exported by a Makefile that can be given as a parameter to make. makevar identifies a variable that can be set (in the environment, on the make command line, or within the Makefile) to influence the process. <sgmltag>maketarget</sgmltag> and <sgmltag>makevar</sgmltag> Use: Two common targets in a Makefile are all and clean. Typically, invoking all will rebuild the application, and invoking clean will remove the temporary files (.o for example) created by the build process. clean may be controlled by a number of variables, including CLOBBER and RECURSE.]]> Appearance: Two common targets in a Makefile are all and clean. Typically, invoking all will rebuild the application, and invoking clean will remove the temporary files (.o for example) created by the build process. clean may be controlled by a number of variables, including CLOBBER and RECURSE. Literal text You will often need to include literal text in the Handbook. This is text that is excerpted from another file, or which should be copied from the Handbook into another file verbatim. Some of the time, programlisting will be sufficient to denote this text. programlisting is not always appropriate, particularly when you want to include a portion of a file in-line with the rest of the paragraph. On these occasions, use literal. <sgmltag>literal</sgmltag> Use: The maxusers 10 line in the kernel configuration file determines the size of many system tables, and is a rough guide to how many simultaneous logins the system will support.]]> Appearance: The maxusers 10 line in the kernel configuration file determines the size of many system tables, and is a rough guide to how many simultaneous logins the system will support. Showing items that the user <emphasis>must</emphasis> fill in There will often be times when you want to show the user what to do, or refer to a file, or command line, or similar, where the user cannot simply copy the examples that you provide, but must instead include some information themselves. replaceable is designed for this eventuality. Use it inside other elements to indicate parts of that element's content that the user must replace. <sgmltag>replaceable</sgmltag> Use: &prompt.user; man command ]]> Appearance: &prompt.user; man command replaceable can be used in many different elements, including literal. This example also shows that replaceable should only be wrapped around the content that the user is meant to provide. The other content should be left alone. Use: The maxusers n line in the kernel configuration file determines the size of many system tables, and is a rough guide to how many simultaneous logins the system will support. For a desktop workstation, 32 is a good value for n.]]> Appearance: The maxusers n line in the kernel configuration file determines the size of many system tables, and is a rough guide to how many simultaneous logins the system will support. For a desktop workstation, 32 is a good value for n. Quoting system errors You might want to show errors generated by FreeBSD. Mark these with errorname. This indicates the exact error that appears. <sgmltag>errorname</sgmltag> Use: Panic: cannot mount root ]]> Appearance: Panic: cannot mount root Images Image support in the documentation is currently extremely experimental. I think the mechanisms described here are unlikely to change, but that is not guaranteed. You will also need to install the graphics/ImageMagick port, which is used to convert between the different image formats. This is a big port, and most of it is not required. However, while we are working on the Makefiles and other infrastructure it makes things easier. This port is not in the textproc/docproj meta port, you must install it by hand. The best example of what follows in practice is the doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/vm-design/ document. If you are unsure of the description that follows, take a look at the files in that directory to see how everything hangs together. Experiment with creating different formatted versions of the document to see how the image markup appears in the formatted output. Image formats We currently support two formats for images. The format you should use will depend on the nature of your image. For images that are primarily vector based, such as network diagrams, time lines, and similar, use Encapsulated Postscript, and make sure that your images have the .eps extension. For bitmaps, such as screen captures, use the Portable Network Graphic format, and make sure that your images have the .png extension. These are the only formats in which images should be committed to the CVS repository. Use the right format for the right image. It is to be expected that your documentation will have a mix of EPS and PNG images. The Makefiles ensure that the correct format image is chosen depending on the output format that you use for your documentation. Do not commit the same image to the repository in two different formats. It is anticipated that the Documentation Project will switch to using the Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) format for vector images. However, the current state of SVG capable editing tools makes this impractical. Markup The markup for an image is relatively simple. First, markup a mediaobject. The mediaobject can contain other, more specific objects. We are concerned with two, the imageobject and the textobject. You should include one imageobject, and two textobject elements. The imageobject will point to the name of the image file that will be used (without the extension). The textobject elements contain information that will be presented to the user as well as, or instead of, the image. There are two circumstances where this can happen. When the reader is viewing the documentation in HTML. In this case, each image will need to have associated alternate text to show the user, typically whilst the image is loading, or if they hover the mouse pointer over the image. When the reader is viewing the documentation in plain text. In this case, each image should have an ASCII art equivalent to show the user. An example will probably make things easier to understand. Suppose you have an image, called fig1, that you want to include in the document. This image is of a rectangle with an A inside it. The markup for this would be as follows. <mediaobject> <imageobject> <imagedata fileref="fig1"> </imageobject> <textobject> <literallayout class="monospaced">+---------------+ | A | +---------------+</literallayout> </textobject> <textobject> <phrase>A picture</phrase> </textobject> </mediaobject> Include an imagedata element inside the imageobject element. The fileref attribute should contain the filename of the image to include, without the extension. The stylesheets will work out which extension should be added to the filename automatically. The first textobject should contain a literallayout element, where the class attribute is set to monospaced. This is your opportunity to demonstrate your ASCII art skills. This content will be used if the document is converted to plain text. Notice how the first and last lines of the content of the literallayout element butt up next to the element's tags. This ensures no extraneous white space is included. The second textobject should contain a single phrase element. The contents of this will become the alt attribute for the image when this document is converted to HTML. <filename>Makefile</filename> entries Your images must be listed in the Makefile in the IMAGES variable. This variable should contain the name of all your source images. For example, if you have created three figures, fig1.eps, fig2.png, fig3.png, then your Makefile should have lines like this in it. … IMAGES= fig1.eps fig2.png fig3.png … or … IMAGES= fig1.eps IMAGES+= fig2.png IMAGES+= fig3.png … Again, the Makefile will work out the complete list of images it needs to build your source document, you only need to list the image files you provided. Images and chapters in subdirectories You must be careful when you separate your documentation into smaller files (see ) in different directories. Suppose you have a book with three chapters, and the chapters are stored in their own directories, called chapter1/chapter.sgml, chapter2/chapter.sgml, and chapter3/chapter.sgml. If each chapter has images associated with it, I suggest you place those images in each chapter's subdirectory (chapter1/, chapter2/, and chapter3/). However, if you do this you must include the directory names in the IMAGES variable in the Makefile, and you must include the directory name in the imagedata element in your document. For example, if you have chapter1/fig1.png, then chapter1/chapter.sgml should contain <mediaobject> <imageobject> <imagedata fileref="chapter1/fig1"> </imageobject> … </mediaobject> The directory name must be included in the fileref attribute The Makefile must contain … IMAGES= chapter1/fig1.png … Then everything should just work. Links Links are also in-line elements. Linking to other parts of the same document Linking within the same document requires you to specify where you are linking from (i.e., the text the user will click, or otherwise indicate, as the source of the link) and where you are linking to (the link's destination). Each element within DocBook has an attribute called id. You can place text in this attribute to uniquely name the element it is attached to. This value will be used when you specify the link source. Normally, you will only be linking to chapters or sections, so you would add the id attribute to these elements. <literal>id on chapters and sections</literal> Introduction This is the introduction. It contains a subsection, which is identified as well. Sub-sect 1 This is the subsection. ]]> Obviously, you should use more descriptive values. The values must be unique within the document (i.e., not just the file, but the document the file might be included in as well). Notice how the id for the subsection is constructed by appending text to the id of the chapter. This helps to ensure that they are unique. If you want to allow the user to jump into a specific portion of the document (possibly in the middle of a paragraph or an example), use anchor. This element has no content, but takes an id attribute. <sgmltag>anchor</sgmltag> This paragraph has an embedded link target in it. It will not show up in the document.]]> When you want to provide the user with a link they can activate (probably by clicking) to go to a section of the document that has an id attribute, you can use either xref or link. Both of these elements have a linkend attribute. The value of this attribute should be the value that you have used in a id attribute (it does not matter if that value has not yet occurred in your document; this will work for forward links as well as backward links). If you use xref then you have no control over the text of the link. It will be generated for you. Using <sgmltag>xref</sgmltag> Assume that this fragment appears somewhere in a document that includes the id example; More information can be found in . More specific information can be found in .]]> The text of the link will be generated automatically, and will look like (emphasised text indicates the text that will be the link);
More information can be found in Chapter One. More specific information can be found in the section called Sub-sect 1.
Notice how the text from the link is derived from the section title or the chapter number. This means that you cannot use xref to link to an id attribute on an anchor element. The anchor has no content, so the xref cannot generate the text for the link. If you want to control the text of the link then use link. This element wraps content, and the content will be used for the link. Using <sgmltag>link</sgmltag> Assume that this fragment appears somewhere in a document that includes the id example. More information can be found in the first chapter. More specific information can be found in this section.]]> This will generate the following (emphasised text indicates the text that will be the link);
More information can be found in the first chapter. More specific information can be found in this section.
That last one is a bad example. Never use words like this or here as the source for the link. The reader will need to hunt around the surrounding context to see where the link is actually taking them. You can use link to include a link to an id on an anchor element, since the link content defines the text that will be used for the link. Linking to documents on the WWW Linking to external documents is much simpler, as long as you know the URL of the document you want to link to. Use ulink. The url attribute is the URL of the page that the link points to, and the content of the element is the text that will be displayed for the user to activate. <sgmltag>ulink</sgmltag> Use: Of course, you could stop reading this document and - go to the FreeBSD + go to the FreeBSD home page instead.]]> Appearance: Of course, you could stop reading this document and go to the - FreeBSD home page + FreeBSD home page instead.