oam/knowledge base/freebsd.md

FreeBSD

Table of contents

1. TL;DR
2. Utilities worth noting
3. The rc.conf files
4. Package management
   1. Manage binary packages with pkg
   2. Manage ports from the Ports collection
5. Enable time sync for the NTP server
6. Graphical UI
   1. KDE
7. VirtualBox Guest Additions
8. Linux binary compatibility
9. Further readings
10. Sources

TL;DR

# Read manual pages.
man 5 'rc.conf'

# Search for keywords in the manual page descriptions.
man -k 'mail'

# Edit files.
edit 'path/to/file'

# Become 'root' from user sessions.
# The user must know root's password *and* be member of the 'wheel' group.
# Use '-' at the end to also load root's environment.
su
su -

# Add new members to groups.
pw groupmod 'group_name' -m 'username'
pw groupmod 'group_name' -m 'username_1','username_N'

# Replace all members in groups.
pw groupmod 'group_name' -M 'username'
pw groupmod 'group_name' -M 'username_1','username_N'

# Change users' default shell.
chpass -s 'path/to/shell' 'username'
chpass -s "$(grep 'bin/zsh' '/etc/shells')" 'username'

# Start services at boot.
sysrc ntpd_enable="YES"
sysrc vboxguest_enable="YES"

# Get the current system's version.
freebsd-version

# Upgrade the system.
# Maintains the current version.
freebsd-update fetch && \
freebsd-update install

# Upgrade the system to a newer version.
freebsd-update upgrade -r '13.2-RELEASE' && \
freebsd-update install

# Initialize the package managers.
pkg bootstrap
portsnap auto

# Update the package cache.
pkg update

# Search for packages.
pkg search 'bash'

# Install packages.
pkg install 'vim'
pkg install -y 'zsh' 'zsh-autosuggestions'

# Upgrade packages.
pkg upgrade
pkg install -y 'zsh' 'zsh-autosuggestions'

# Check for known vulnerabilities in *installed* applications.
pkg audit -F
pkg audit -Fr 'sqlite'

# *Gently* reboot the system.
shutdown -r now
shutdown -r +30 "System will reboot"

# *Gently* shutdown the system.
# `poweroff` is equivalent to `shutdown -p now`.
shutdown -p +5
poweroff

Utilities worth noting

• bsdinstall
• bsdconfig

The rc.conf files

The rc.conf files contain information about the local host name, configuration details for any network interfaces and which services should be started up at system boot.
Options are set with name=value assignments using the sh(1) syntax, and the files are included by the various generic startup scripts in /etc which than make decision about their internal actions according to their contents.

The sysrc(8) command provides a scripting interface to programmatically modify system configuration files.

The /etc/defaults/rc.conf file specifies the default settings for all the available options. At its very end, it sources, in order:

• the /etc/rc.conf file, to allow system administrators to override such default values for the local system, and
• the /etc/defaults/vendor.conf file, to allow vendors to override system defaults.

In the very same way, the /etc/rc.conf.local file is used to override settings in /etc/rc.conf for historical reasons.

In addition to /etc/rc.conf.local, one can also place smaller configuration files for each rc(8) script in the /etc/rc.conf.d or ⟨dir⟩/rc.conf.d directories specified in local_startup, all of which will then be included by the load_rc_config function.

For jail configurations, one could use the /etc/rc.conf.d/jail file to store configuration options specific to jails only.
If local_startup contains /usr/local/etc/rc.d and /opt/conf, /usr/local/rc.conf.d/jail and /opt/conf/rc.conf.d/jail will be loaded too. If ⟨dir⟩/rc.conf.d/⟨name⟩ is a directory, all the files in it will be loaded too.

See the contents of man 5 rc.conf for more information.

Package management

Requires:

• pkg if one wants to deal with binary packages;
• the Ports collection if one wants to compile and install source code in an automated way.

See Installing applications for more information.

Manage binary packages with pkg

# Bootstrap `pkg`.
# Need to be run as 'root'.
pkg bootstrap

# Update the package cache.
pkg update

# Get help on the command.
pkg help
pkg help 'search'

# Search for packages.
pkg search 'bash'

# Install packages.
pkg install 'vim'
pkg install -y 'zsh' 'zsh-autosuggestions'

Manage ports from the Ports collection

TODO

Enable time sync for the NTP server

sysrc ntpd_enable="YES"
sysrc ntpd_sync_on_start="YES"

Graphical UI

KDE

Not working (= need to study how to make it work) with Wayland at the time of writing.

pw groupmod 'video' -m 'user'
pkg install 'xorg' 'sddm' 'plasma5-plasma' 'plasma5-sddm-kcm' 'konsole' 'dolphin-plugins'
sysctl net.local.stream.recvspace=65536 net.local.stream.sendspace=65536
sysrc dbus_enable="YES" sddm_enable="YES"
service 'dbus' start
service 'sddm' start

VirtualBox Guest Additions

1. Install the additions.
   Use the -nox11 package for console-only guests.

   pkg update
   pkg install -y 'virtualbox-ose-additions'
   

2. Enable the services at boot:

   sysrc vboxguest_enable="YES" vboxservice_enable="YES"
   

3. If ntp or ntpdate are used, disable the additions' time sync:

   sysrc vboxservice_flags="--disable-timesync"
   

4. If you plan to use Xorg, also install xf86-video-vmware:

   pkg install -y 'xf86-video-vmware'
   

Linux binary compatibility

Already present on the host but disabled by default.

sysrc linux_enable="YES"
service linux start

The Linux service loads kernel modules and mounts the file systems Linux applications expect under /compat/linux.
Linux binaries start in the same way native FreeBSD binaries do; they behave almost exactly like native processes and can be traced and debugged as usual.

A Linux userland must be installed to run Linux software that requires more than just an ABI to work (like depending on common libraries). Some Linux software is already included in the Ports tree, and installing it will automatically setup the required Linux userland.

# CentOS userland.
# Will place the base system derived from CentOS 7 into '/compat/linux'.
pkg install 'linux_base-c7'

# Use `debootstrap` for Debian or Ubuntu userland.
# See https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/linuxemu/#linuxemu-debootstrap.

Further readings

• The FreeBSD Handbook
• rc.conf's man page
• Installing applications
• Using the Ports collection
• Linux binary compatibility

Sources

All the references in the [further readings] section, plus the following:

• NTPdate - not updating to current time
• Boinc
• sbz's FreeBSD commands cheat-sheet