1.2.1 What Can FreeBSD Do?

FreeBSD has many noteworthy features. Some of these are:

• Preemptive multitasking with dynamic priority adjustment to ensure smooth and fair sharing of the computer between applications and users, even under the heaviest of loads.

• Multi-user facilities which allow many people to use a FreeBSD system simultaneously for a variety of things. This means, for example, that system peripherals such as printers and tape drives are properly shared between all users on the system or the network and that individual resource limits can be placed on users or groups of users, protecting critical system resources from over-use.

• Strong TCP/IP networking with support for industry standards such as SCTP, DHCP, NFS, NIS, PPP, SLIP, IPsec, and IPv6. This means that your FreeBSD machine can interoperate easily with other systems as well as act as an enterprise server, providing vital functions such as NFS (remote file access) and email services or putting your organization on the Internet with WWW, FTP, routing and firewall (security) services.

• Memory protection ensures that applications (or users) cannot interfere with each other. One application crashing will not affect others in any way.

• FreeBSD is a 32-bit operating system (64-bit on the Alpha, Itanium, AMD64, and UltraSPARC) and was designed as such from the ground up.

• The industry standard X Window System (X11R7) provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for the cost of a common VGA card and monitor and comes with full sources.

• Binary compatibility with many programs built for Linux, SCO, SVR4, BSDI and NetBSD.

• Thousands of ready-to-run applications are available from the FreeBSD ports and packages collection. Why search the net when you can find it all right here?

• Thousands of additional and easy-to-port applications are available on the Internet. FreeBSD is source code compatible with most popular commercial UNIX systems and thus most applications require few, if any, changes to compile.

• Demand paged virtual memory and “merged VM/buffer cache” design efficiently satisfies applications with large appetites for memory while still maintaining interactive response to other users.

• SMP support for machines with multiple CPUs.

• A full complement of C, C++, and Fortran development tools. Many additional languages for advanced research and development are also available in the ports and packages collection.

• Source code for the entire system means you have the greatest degree of control over your environment. Why be locked into a proprietary solution at the mercy of your vendor when you can have a truly open system?

• Extensive online documentation.

• And many more!

FreeBSD is based on the 4.4BSD-Lite release from Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California at Berkeley, and carries on the distinguished tradition of BSD systems development. In addition to the fine work provided by CSRG, the FreeBSD Project has put in many thousands of hours in fine tuning the system for maximum performance and reliability in real-life load situations. As many of the commercial giants struggle to field PC operating systems with such features, performance and reliability, FreeBSD can offer them now!

The applications to which FreeBSD can be put are truly limited only by your own imagination. From software development to factory automation, inventory control to azimuth correction of remote satellite antennae; if it can be done with a commercial UNIX product then it is more than likely that you can do it with FreeBSD too! FreeBSD also benefits significantly from literally thousands of high quality applications developed by research centers and universities around the world, often available at little to no cost. Commercial applications are also available and appearing in greater numbers every day.

Because the source code for FreeBSD itself is generally available, the system can also be customized to an almost unheard of degree for special applications or projects, and in ways not generally possible with operating systems from most major commercial vendors. Here is just a sampling of some of the applications in which people are currently using FreeBSD:

• Internet Services: The robust TCP/IP networking built into FreeBSD makes it an ideal platform for a variety of Internet services such as:

  • FTP servers

  • World Wide Web servers (standard or secure [SSL])

  • IPv4 and IPv6 routing

  • Firewalls and NAT (“IP masquerading”) gateways

  • Electronic Mail servers

  • USENET News or Bulletin Board Systems

  • And more...

  With FreeBSD, you can easily start out small with an inexpensive 386 class PC and upgrade all the way up to a quad-processor Xeon with RAID storage as your enterprise grows.

• Education: Are you a student of computer science or a related engineering field? There is no better way of learning about operating systems, computer architecture and networking than the hands on, under the hood experience that FreeBSD can provide. A number of freely available CAD, mathematical and graphic design packages also make it highly useful to those whose primary interest in a computer is to get other work done!

• Research: With source code for the entire system available, FreeBSD is an excellent platform for research in operating systems as well as other branches of computer science. FreeBSD's freely available nature also makes it possible for remote groups to collaborate on ideas or shared development without having to worry about special licensing agreements or limitations on what may be discussed in open forums.

• Networking: Need a new router? A name server (DNS)? A firewall to keep people out of your internal network? FreeBSD can easily turn that unused 386 or 486 PC sitting in the corner into an advanced router with sophisticated packet-filtering capabilities.

• X Window workstation: FreeBSD is a fine choice for an inexpensive X terminal solution, using the freely available X11 server. Unlike an X terminal, FreeBSD allows many applications to be run locally if desired, thus relieving the burden on a central server. FreeBSD can even boot “diskless”, making individual workstations even cheaper and easier to administer.

• Software Development: The basic FreeBSD system comes with a full complement of development tools including the renowned GNU C/C++ compiler and debugger.

FreeBSD is available in both source and binary form on CDROM, DVD, and via anonymous FTP. Please see Appendix A for more information about obtaining FreeBSD.

1.2.2 Who Uses FreeBSD?

FreeBSD is used to power some of the biggest sites on the Internet, including:

• Yahoo!

• Apache

• Blue Mountain Arts

• Pair Networks

• Sony Japan

• Netcraft

• Weathernews

• Supervalu

• TELEHOUSE America

• Sophos Anti-Virus

• JMA Wired

and many more.

1.3.1 A Brief History of FreeBSD

The FreeBSD project had its genesis in the early part of 1993, partially as an outgrowth of the “Unofficial 386BSD Patchkit” by the patchkit's last 3 coordinators: Nate Williams, Rod Grimes and myself.

Our original goal was to produce an intermediate snapshot of 386BSD in order to fix a number of problems with it that the patchkit mechanism just was not capable of solving. Some of you may remember the early working title for the project being “386BSD 0.5” or “386BSD Interim” in reference to that fact.

386BSD was Bill Jolitz's operating system, which had been up to that point suffering rather severely from almost a year's worth of neglect. As the patchkit swelled ever more uncomfortably with each passing day, we were in unanimous agreement that something had to be done and decided to assist Bill by providing this interim “cleanup” snapshot. Those plans came to a rude halt when Bill Jolitz suddenly decided to withdraw his sanction from the project without any clear indication of what would be done instead.

It did not take us long to decide that the goal remained worthwhile, even without Bill's support, and so we adopted the name “FreeBSD”, coined by David Greenman. Our initial objectives were set after consulting with the system's current users and, once it became clear that the project was on the road to perhaps even becoming a reality, I contacted Walnut Creek CDROM with an eye toward improving FreeBSD's distribution channels for those many unfortunates without easy access to the Internet. Walnut Creek CDROM not only supported the idea of distributing FreeBSD on CD but also went so far as to provide the project with a machine to work on and a fast Internet connection. Without Walnut Creek CDROM's almost unprecedented degree of faith in what was, at the time, a completely unknown project, it is quite unlikely that FreeBSD would have gotten as far, as fast, as it has today.

The first CDROM (and general net-wide) distribution was FreeBSD 1.0, released in December of 1993. This was based on the 4.3BSD-Lite (“Net/2”) tape from U.C. Berkeley, with many components also provided by 386BSD and the Free Software Foundation. It was a fairly reasonable success for a first offering, and we followed it with the highly successful FreeBSD 1.1 release in May of 1994.

Around this time, some rather unexpected storm clouds formed on the horizon as Novell and U.C. Berkeley settled their long-running lawsuit over the legal status of the Berkeley Net/2 tape. A condition of that settlement was U.C. Berkeley's concession that large parts of Net/2 were “encumbered” code and the property of Novell, who had in turn acquired it from AT&T some time previously. What Berkeley got in return was Novell's “blessing” that the 4.4BSD-Lite release, when it was finally released, would be declared unencumbered and all existing Net/2 users would be strongly encouraged to switch. This included FreeBSD, and the project was given until the end of July 1994 to stop shipping its own Net/2 based product. Under the terms of that agreement, the project was allowed one last release before the deadline, that release being FreeBSD 1.1.5.1.

FreeBSD then set about the arduous task of literally re-inventing itself from a completely new and rather incomplete set of 4.4BSD-Lite bits. The “Lite” releases were light in part because Berkeley's CSRG had removed large chunks of code required for actually constructing a bootable running system (due to various legal requirements) and the fact that the Intel port of 4.4 was highly incomplete. It took the project until November of 1994 to make this transition, at which point it released FreeBSD 2.0 to the net and on CDROM (in late December). Despite being still more than a little rough around the edges, the release was a significant success and was followed by the more robust and easier to install FreeBSD 2.0.5 release in June of 1995.

We released FreeBSD 2.1.5 in August of 1996, and it appeared to be popular enough among the ISP and commercial communities that another release along the 2.1-STABLE branch was merited. This was FreeBSD 2.1.7.1, released in February 1997 and capping the end of mainstream development on 2.1-STABLE. Now in maintenance mode, only security enhancements and other critical bug fixes will be done on this branch (RELENG_2_1_0).

FreeBSD 2.2 was branched from the development mainline (“-CURRENT”) in November 1996 as the RELENG_2_2 branch, and the first full release (2.2.1) was released in April 1997. Further releases along the 2.2 branch were done in the summer and fall of '97, the last of which (2.2.8) appeared in November 1998. The first official 3.0 release appeared in October 1998 and spelled the beginning of the end for the 2.2 branch.

The tree branched again on Jan 20, 1999, leading to the 4.0-CURRENT and 3.X-STABLE branches. From 3.X-STABLE, 3.1 was released on February 15, 1999, 3.2 on May 15, 1999, 3.3 on September 16, 1999, 3.4 on December 20, 1999, and 3.5 on June 24, 2000, which was followed a few days later by a minor point release update to 3.5.1, to incorporate some last-minute security fixes to Kerberos. This will be the final release in the 3.X branch.

There was another branch on March 13, 2000, which saw the emergence of the 4.X-STABLE branch. There have been several releases from it so far: 4.0-RELEASE was introduced in March 2000, and the last 4.11-RELEASE came out in January 2005.

The long-awaited 5.0-RELEASE was announced on January 19, 2003. The culmination of nearly three years of work, this release started FreeBSD on the path of advanced multiprocessor and application thread support and introduced support for the UltraSPARC and ia64 platforms. This release was followed by 5.1 in June of 2003. The last 5.X release from the -CURRENT branch was 5.2.1-RELEASE, introduced in February 2004.

The RELENG_5 branch, created in August 2004, was followed by 5.3-RELEASE, which marked the beginning of the 5-STABLE branch releases. The most recent 5.5-RELEASE came out in May 2006. There will be no additional releases from the RELENG_5 branch.

The tree was branched again in July 2005, this time for RELENG_6. 6.0-RELEASE, the first release of the 6.X branch, was released in November 2005. The most recent 6.2-RELEASE came out in Jan 2007. There will be additional releases from the RELENG_6 branch.

For now, long-term development projects continue to take place in the 7.X-CURRENT (trunk) branch, and SNAPshot releases of 7.X on CDROM (and, of course, on the net) are continually made available from the snapshot server as work progresses.

1.3.2 FreeBSD Project Goals

The goals of the FreeBSD Project are to provide software that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached. Many of us have a significant investment in the code (and project) and would certainly not mind a little financial compensation now and then, but we are definitely not prepared to insist on it. We believe that our first and foremost “mission” is to provide code to any and all comers, and for whatever purpose, so that the code gets the widest possible use and provides the widest possible benefit. This is, I 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 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, prefer software submitted under the more relaxed BSD copyright when it is a reasonable option to do so.

1.3.3 The FreeBSD Development Model

The development of FreeBSD is a very open and flexible process, being literally built from the contributions of hundreds of people around the world, as can be seen from our list of contributors. FreeBSD's development infrastructure allow these hundreds of developers to collaborate over the Internet. We are constantly on the lookout for new developers and ideas, and those interested in becoming more closely involved with the project need simply contact us at the FreeBSD technical discussions mailing list. The FreeBSD announcements mailing list is also available to those wishing to make other FreeBSD users aware of major areas of work.

Useful things to know about the FreeBSD project and its development process, whether working independently or in close cooperation:

In summary, our development model is organized as a loose set of concentric circles. The centralized model is designed for the convenience of the users of FreeBSD, who are provided with an easy way of tracking one central code base, not to keep potential contributors out! Our desire is to present a stable operating system with a large set of coherent application programs that the users can easily install and use -- this model works very well in accomplishing that.

All we ask of those who would join us as FreeBSD developers is some of the same dedication its current people have to its continued success!

1.3.4 The Current FreeBSD Release

FreeBSD is a freely available, full source 4.4BSD-Lite based release for Intel i386™, i486™, Pentium®, Pentium Pro, Celeron®, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4 (or compatible), Xeon™, DEC Alpha and Sun UltraSPARC based computer systems. It is based primarily on software from U.C. Berkeley's CSRG group, with some enhancements from NetBSD, OpenBSD, 386BSD, and the Free Software Foundation.

Since our release of FreeBSD 2.0 in late 1994, the performance, feature set, and stability of FreeBSD has improved dramatically. The largest change is a revamped virtual memory system with a merged VM/file buffer cache that not only increases performance, but also reduces FreeBSD's memory footprint, making a 5 MB configuration a more acceptable minimum. Other enhancements include full NIS client and server support, transaction TCP support, dial-on-demand PPP, integrated DHCP support, an improved SCSI subsystem, ISDN support, support for ATM, FDDI, Fast and Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbit) adapters, improved support for the latest Adaptec controllers, and many thousands of bug fixes.

In addition to the base distributions, FreeBSD offers a ported software collection with thousands of commonly sought-after programs. At the time of this printing, there were over 17,000 ports! The list of ports ranges from http (WWW) servers, to games, languages, editors, and almost everything in between. The entire Ports Collection requires approximately 440 MB of storage, all ports being expressed as “deltas” to their original sources. This makes it much easier for us to update ports, and greatly reduces the disk space demands made by the older 1.0 Ports Collection. To compile a port, you simply change to the directory of the program you wish to install, type make install, and let the system do the rest. The full original distribution for each port you build is retrieved dynamically off the CDROM or a local FTP site, so you need only enough disk space to build the ports you want. Almost every port is also provided as a pre-compiled “package”, which can be installed with a simple command (pkg_add) by those who do not wish to compile their own ports from source. More information on packages and ports can be found in Chapter 4.

A number of additional documents which you may find very helpful in the process of installing and using FreeBSD may now also be found in the /usr/share/doc directory on any recent FreeBSD machine. You may view the locally installed manuals with any HTML capable browser using the following URLs:

You can also view the master (and most frequently updated) copies at http://www.FreeBSD.org/.

2.2.1 Minimal Configuration

The minimal configuration to install FreeBSD varies with the FreeBSD version and the hardware architecture.

Information about the minimal configuration is available in the Installation Notes on the Release Information page of the FreeBSD web site. A summary of this information is given in the following sections. Depending on the method you choose to install FreeBSD, you may also need a floppy drive, a supported CDROM drive, and in some case a network adapter. This will be covered by the Section 2.3.7.

2.2.2 Supported Hardware

A list of supported hardware is provided with each FreeBSD release in the FreeBSD Hardware Notes. This document can usually be found in a file named HARDWARE.TXT, in the top-level directory of a CDROM or FTP distribution or in sysinstall's documentation menu. It lists, for a given architecture, what hardware devices are known to be supported by each release of FreeBSD. Copies of the supported hardware list for various releases and architectures can also be found on the Release Information page of the FreeBSD Web site.

2.3.1 Inventory Your Computer

Before installing FreeBSD you should attempt to inventory the components in your computer. The FreeBSD installation routines will show you the components (hard disks, network cards, CDROM drives, and so forth) with their model number and manufacturer. FreeBSD will also attempt to determine the correct configuration for these devices, which includes information about IRQ and IO port usage. Due to the vagaries of PC hardware this process is not always completely successful, and you may need to correct FreeBSD's determination of your configuration.

If you already have another operating system installed, such as Windows or Linux, it is a good idea to use the facilities provided by those operating systems to see how your hardware is already configured. If you are not sure what settings an expansion card is using, you may find it printed on the card itself. Popular IRQ numbers are 3, 5, and 7, and IO port addresses are normally written as hexadecimal numbers, such as 0x330.

We recommend you print or write down this information before installing FreeBSD. It may help to use a table, like this:

Once the inventory of the components in your computer is done, you have to check if they match the hardware requirements of the FreeBSD release you want to install.

2.3.2 Backup Your Data

If the computer you will be installing FreeBSD on contains valuable data, then ensure you have it backed up, and that you have tested the backups before installing FreeBSD. The FreeBSD installation routine will prompt you before writing any data to your disk, but once that process has started it cannot be undone.

2.3.3 Decide Where to Install FreeBSD

If you want FreeBSD to use your entire hard disk, then there is nothing more to concern yourself with at this point -- you can skip this section.

However, if you need FreeBSD to co-exist with other operating systems then you need to have a rough understanding of how data is laid out on the disk, and how this affects you.

2.3.4 Collect Your Network Configuration Details

If you intend to connect to a network as part of your FreeBSD installation (for example, if you will be installing from an FTP site or an NFS server), then you need to know your network configuration. You will be prompted for this information during the installation so that FreeBSD can connect to the network to complete the install.

2.3.5 Check for FreeBSD Errata

Although the FreeBSD project strives to ensure that each release of FreeBSD is as stable as possible, bugs do occasionally creep into the process. On very rare occasions those bugs affect the installation process. As these problems are discovered and fixed, they are noted in the FreeBSD Errata, which is found on the FreeBSD web site. You should check the errata before installing to make sure that there are no late-breaking problems which you should be aware of.

Information about all the releases, including the errata for each release, can be found on the release information section of the FreeBSD web site.

2.3.6 Obtain the FreeBSD Installation Files

The FreeBSD installation process can install FreeBSD from files located in any of the following places:

Local Media

• A CDROM or DVD

• A DOS partition on the same computer

• A SCSI or QIC tape

• Floppy disks

Network

• An FTP site, going through a firewall, or using an HTTP proxy, as necessary

• An NFS server

• A dedicated parallel or serial connection

If you have purchased FreeBSD on CD or DVD then you already have everything you need, and should proceed to the next section (Section 2.3.7).

If you have not obtained the FreeBSD installation files you should skip ahead to Section 2.13 which explains how to prepare to install FreeBSD from any of the above. After reading that section, you should come back here, and read on to Section 2.3.7.

2.3.7 Prepare the Boot Media

The FreeBSD installation process is started by booting your computer into the FreeBSD installer--it is not a program you run within another operating system. Your computer normally boots using the operating system installed on your hard disk, but it can also be configured to use a “bootable” floppy disk. Most modern computers can also boot from a CDROM in the CDROM drive.

To create boot floppy images, follow these steps:

You are now ready to start installing FreeBSD.

2.4.1 Booting

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2.4.1.3 Booting for Sparc64®

Most Sparc64® systems are set up to boot automatically from disk. To install FreeBSD, you need to boot over the network or from a CDROM, which requires you to break into the PROM (OpenFirmware).

To do this, reboot the system, and wait until the boot message appears. It depends on the model, but should look about like:

Sun Blade 100 (UltraSPARC-IIe), Keyboard Present Copyright 1998-2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. OpenBoot 4.2, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #51090132. Ethernet address 0:3:ba:b:92:d4, Host ID: 830b92d4.

If your system proceeds to boot from disk at this point, you need to press L1+A or Stop+A on the keyboard, or send a BREAK over the serial console (using for example ~# in tip(1) or cu(1)) to get to the PROM prompt. It looks like this:

ok ok {0}

This is the prompt used on systems with just one CPU.

This is the prompt used on SMP systems, the digit indicates the number of the active CPU.

At this point, place the CDROM into your drive, and from the PROM prompt, type boot cdrom.

2.4.2 Reviewing the Device Probe Results

The last few hundred lines that have been displayed on screen are stored and can be reviewed.

To review the buffer, press Scroll Lock. This turns on scrolling in the display. You can then use the arrow keys, or PageUp and PageDown to view the results. Press Scroll Lock again to stop scrolling.

Do this now, to review the text that scrolled off the screen when the kernel was carrying out the device probes. You will see text similar to Figure 2-2, although the precise text will differ depending on the devices that you have in your computer.

Check the probe results carefully to make sure that FreeBSD found all the devices you expected. If a device was not found, then it will not be listed. A custom kernel allows you to add in support for devices which are not in the GENERIC kernel, such as sound cards.

For FreeBSD 6.2 and later, after the procedure of device probing, you will see Figure 2-3. Use the arrow key to choose a country, region, or group. Then press Enter, it will set your country and keymap easily. It is also easy to exit the sysinstall program and start over again.

Use the arrow keys to select Exit Install from the Main Install Screen menu. The following message will display:

The install program will start again if the CDROM is left in the drive and [ Yes ] is selected.

If you are booting from floppies it will be necessary to remove the boot.flp floppy before rebooting.

2.5.1 Selecting the Documentation Menu

From the Main Menu, select Doc with the arrow keys and press Enter.

This will display the Documentation Menu.

It is important to read the documents provided.

To view a document, select it with the arrow keys and press Enter. When finished reading a document, pressing Enter will return to the Documentation Menu.

To return to the Main Installation Menu, select Exit with the arrow keys and press Enter.

2.5.2 Selecting the Keymap Menu

To change the keyboard mapping, use the arrow keys to select Keymap from the menu and press Enter. This is only required if you are using a non-standard or non-US keyboard.

A different keyboard mapping may be chosen by selecting the menu item using up/down arrow keys and pressing Space. Pressing Space again will unselect the item. When finished, choose the [ OK ] using the arrow keys and press Enter.

Only a partial list is shown in this screen representation. Selecting [ Cancel ] by pressing Tab will use the default keymap and return to the Main Install Menu.

2.5.3 Installation Options Screen

Select Options and press Enter.

The default values are usually fine for most users and do not need to be changed. The release name will vary according to the version being installed.

The description of the selected item will appear at the bottom of the screen highlighted in blue. Notice that one of the options is Use Defaults to reset all values to startup defaults.

Press F1 to read the help screen about the various options.

Pressing Q will return to the Main Install menu.

2.5.4 Begin a Standard Installation

The Standard installation is the option recommended for those new to UNIX or FreeBSD. Use the arrow keys to select Standard and then press Enter to start the installation.

2.6.1 BIOS Drive Numbering

Before you install and configure FreeBSD on your system, there is an important subject that you should be aware of, especially if you have multiple hard drives.

In a PC running a BIOS-dependent operating system such as MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows, the BIOS is able to abstract the normal disk drive order, and the operating system goes along with the change. This allows the user to boot from a disk drive other than the so-called “primary master”. This is especially convenient for some users who have found that the simplest and cheapest way to keep a system backup is to buy an identical second hard drive, and perform routine copies of the first drive to the second drive using Ghost® or XCOPY . Then, if the first drive fails, or is attacked by a virus, or is scribbled upon by an operating system defect, he can easily recover by instructing the BIOS to logically swap the drives. It is like switching the cables on the drives, but without having to open the case.

More expensive systems with SCSI controllers often include BIOS extensions which allow the SCSI drives to be re-ordered in a similar fashion for up to seven drives.

A user who is accustomed to taking advantage of these features may become surprised when the results with FreeBSD are not as expected. FreeBSD does not use the BIOS, and does not know the “logical BIOS drive mapping”. This can lead to very perplexing situations, especially when drives are physically identical in geometry, and have also been made as data clones of one another.

When using FreeBSD, always restore the BIOS to natural drive numbering before installing FreeBSD, and then leave it that way. If you need to switch drives around, then do so, but do it the hard way, and open the case and move the jumpers and cables.

2.6.2 Creating Slices Using FDisk

After choosing to begin a standard installation in sysinstall you will be shown this message:

Press Enter as instructed. You will then be shown a list of all the hard drives that the kernel found when it carried out the device probes. Figure 2-13 shows an example from a system with two IDE disks. They have been called ad0 and ad2.

You might be wondering why ad1 is not listed here. Why has it been missed?

Consider what would happen if you had two IDE hard disks, one as the master on the first IDE controller, and one as the master on the second IDE controller. If FreeBSD numbered these as it found them, as ad0 and ad1 then everything would work.

But if you then added a third disk, as the slave device on the first IDE controller, it would now be ad1, and the previous ad1 would become ad2. Because device names (such as ad1s1a) are used to find filesystems, you may suddenly discover that some of your filesystems no longer appear correctly, and you would need to change your FreeBSD configuration.

To work around this, the kernel can be configured to name IDE disks based on where they are, and not the order in which they were found. With this scheme the master disk on the second IDE controller will always be ad2, even if there are no ad0 or ad1 devices.

This configuration is the default for the FreeBSD kernel, which is why this display shows ad0 and ad2. The machine on which this screenshot was taken had IDE disks on both master channels of the IDE controllers, and no disks on the slave channels.

You should select the disk on which you want to install FreeBSD, and then press [ OK ]. FDisk will start, with a display similar to that shown in Figure 2-14.

The FDisk display is broken into three sections.

The first section, covering the first two lines of the display, shows details about the currently selected disk, including its FreeBSD name, the disk geometry, and the total size of the disk.

The second section shows the slices that are currently on the disk, where they start and end, how large they are, the name FreeBSD gives them, and their description and sub-type. This example shows two small unused slices, which are artifacts of disk layout schemes on the PC. It also shows one large FAT slice, which almost certainly appears as C: in MS-DOS / Windows, and an extended slice, which may contain other drive letters for MS-DOS / Windows.

The third section shows the commands that are available in FDisk.

What you do now will depend on how you want to slice up your disk.

If you want to use FreeBSD for the entire disk (which will delete all the other data on this disk when you confirm that you want sysinstall to continue later in the installation process) then you can press A, which corresponds to the Use Entire Disk option. The existing slices will be removed, and replaced with a small area flagged as unused (again, an artifact of PC disk layout), and then one large slice for FreeBSD. If you do this, then you should select the newly created FreeBSD slice using the arrow keys, and press S to mark the slice as being bootable. The screen will then look very similar to Figure 2-15. Note the A in the Flags column, which indicates that this slice is active, and will be booted from.

If you will be deleting an existing slice to make space for FreeBSD then you should select the slice using the arrow keys, and then press D. You can then press C, and be prompted for size of slice you want to create. Enter the appropriate figure and press Enter. The default value in this box represents the largest possible slice you can make, which could be the largest contiguous block of unallocated space or the size of the entire hard disk.

If you have already made space for FreeBSD (perhaps by using a tool such as PartitionMagic) then you can press C to create a new slice. Again, you will be prompted for the size of slice you would like to create.

When finished, press Q. Your changes will be saved in sysinstall, but will not yet be written to disk.

2.6.3 Install a Boot Manager

You now have the option to install a boot manager. In general, you should choose to install the FreeBSD boot manager if:

• You have more than one drive, and have installed FreeBSD onto a drive other than the first one.

• You have installed FreeBSD alongside another operating system on the same disk, and you want to choose whether to start FreeBSD or the other operating system when you start the computer.

If FreeBSD is going to be the only operating system on this machine, installed on the first hard disk, then the Standard boot manager will suffice. Choose None if you are using a third-party boot manager capable of booting FreeBSD.

Make your choice and press Enter.

The help screen, reached by pressing F1, discusses the problems that can be encountered when trying to share the hard disk between operating systems.

2.6.4 Creating Slices on Another Drive

If there is more than one drive, it will return to the Select Drives screen after the boot manager selection. If you wish to install FreeBSD on to more than one disk, then you can select another disk here and repeat the slice process using FDisk.

The Tab key toggles between the last drive selected, [ OK ], and [ Cancel ].

Press the Tab once to toggle to the [ OK ], then press Enter to continue with the installation.

2.6.5 Creating Partitions Using Disklabel

You must now create some partitions inside each slice that you have just created. Remember that each partition is lettered, from a through to h, and that partitions b, c, and d have conventional meanings that you should adhere to.

Certain applications can benefit from particular partition schemes, especially if you are laying out partitions across more than one disk. However, for this, your first FreeBSD installation, you do not need to give too much thought to how you partition the disk. It is more important that you install FreeBSD and start learning how to use it. You can always re-install FreeBSD to change your partition scheme when you are more familiar with the operating system.

This scheme features four partitions--one for swap space, and three for filesystems.

If you will be installing FreeBSD on to more than one disk then you must also create partitions in the other slices that you configured. The easiest way to do this is to create two partitions on each disk, one for the swap space, and one for a filesystem.

Having chosen your partition layout you can now create it using sysinstall. You will see this message:

Press Enter to start the FreeBSD partition editor, called Disklabel.

Figure 2-18 shows the display when you first start Disklabel. The display is divided in to three sections.

The first few lines show the name of the disk you are currently working on, and the slice that contains the partitions you are creating (at this point Disklabel calls this the Partition name rather than slice name). This display also shows the amount of free space within the slice; that is, space that was set aside in the slice, but that has not yet been assigned to a partition.

The middle of the display shows the partitions that have been created, the name of the filesystem that each partition contains, their size, and some options pertaining to the creation of the filesystem.

The bottom third of the screen shows the keystrokes that are valid in Disklabel.

Disklabel can automatically create partitions for you and assign them default sizes. Try this now, by Pressing A. You will see a display similar to that shown in Figure 2-19. Depending on the size of the disk you are using, the defaults may or may not be appropriate. This does not matter, as you do not have to accept the defaults.

If you choose to not use the default partitions and wish to replace them with your own, use the arrow keys to select the first partition, and press D to delete it. Repeat this to delete all the suggested partitions.

To create the first partition (a, mounted as / -- root), make sure the proper disk slice at the top of the screen is selected and press C. A dialog box will appear prompting you for the size of the new partition (as shown in Figure 2-20). You can enter the size as the number of disk blocks you want to use, or as a number followed by either M for megabytes, G for gigabytes, or C for cylinders.

The default size shown will create a partition that takes up the rest of the slice. If you are using the partition sizes described in the earlier example, then delete the existing figure using Backspace, and then type in 128M, as shown in Figure 2-21. Then press [ OK ].

Having chosen the partition's size you will then be asked whether this partition will contain a filesystem or swap space. The dialog box is shown in Figure 2-22. This first partition will contain a filesystem, so check that FS is selected and press Enter.

Finally, because you are creating a filesystem, you must tell Disklabel where the filesystem is to be mounted. The dialog box is shown in Figure 2-23. The root filesystem's mount point is /, so type /, and then press Enter.

The display will then update to show you the newly created partition. You should repeat this procedure for the other partitions. When you create the swap partition, you will not be prompted for the filesystem mount point, as swap partitions are never mounted. When you create the final partition, /usr, you can leave the suggested size as is, to use the rest of the slice.

Your final FreeBSD DiskLabel Editor screen will appear similar to Figure 2-24, although your values chosen may be different. Press Q to finish.

2.7.1 Select the Distribution Set

Deciding which distribution set to install will depend largely on the intended use of the system and the amount of disk space available. The predefined options range from installing the smallest possible configuration to everything. Those who are new to UNIX and/or FreeBSD should almost certainly select one of these canned options. Customizing a distribution set is typically for the more experienced user.

Press F1 for more information on the distribution set options and what they contain. When finished reviewing the help, pressing Enter will return to the Select Distributions Menu.

If a graphical user interface is desired then a distribution set that is preceded by an X should be chosen. The configuration of the X server and selection of a default desktop must be done after the installation of FreeBSD. More information regarding the configuration of a X server can be found in Chapter 5.

Xorg is the default version of X11 that is installed.

If compiling a custom kernel is anticipated, select an option which includes the source code. For more information on why a custom kernel should be built or how to build a custom kernel, see Chapter 8.

Obviously, the most versatile system is one that includes everything. If there is adequate disk space, select All as shown in Figure 2-25 by using the arrow keys and press Enter. If there is a concern about disk space consider using an option that is more suitable for the situation. Do not fret over the perfect choice, as other distributions can be added after installation.

2.7.2 Installing the Ports Collection

After selecting the desired distribution, an opportunity to install the FreeBSD Ports Collection is presented. The ports collection is an easy and convenient way to install software. The Ports Collection does not contain the source code necessary to compile the software. Instead, it is a collection of files which automates the downloading, compiling and installation of third-party software packages. Chapter 4 discusses how to use the ports collection.

The installation program does not check to see if you have adequate space. Select this option only if you have adequate hard disk space. As of FreeBSD 6.2, the FreeBSD Ports Collection takes up about 440 MB of disk space. You can safely assume a larger value for more recent versions of FreeBSD.

Select [ Yes ] with the arrow keys to install the Ports Collection or [ No ] to skip this option. Press Enter to continue. The Choose Distributions menu will redisplay.

If satisfied with the options, select Exit with the arrow keys, ensure that [ OK ] is highlighted, and pressing Enter to continue.

2.10.1 Network Device Configuration

If you previously configured PPP for an FTP install, this screen will not display and can be configured later as described above.

For detailed information on Local Area Networks and configuring FreeBSD as a gateway/router refer to the Advanced Networking chapter.

To configure a network device, select [ Yes ] and press Enter. Otherwise, select [ No ] to continue.

Select the interface to be configured with the arrow keys and press Enter.

In this private local area network, the current Internet type protocol (IPv4) was sufficient and [ No ] was selected with the arrow keys and Enter pressed.

If you are connected to an existing IPv6 network with an RA server, then choose [ Yes ] and press Enter. It will take several seconds to scan for RA servers.

If DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) is not required select [ No ] with the arrow keys and press Enter.

Selecting [ Yes ] will execute dhclient, and if successful, will fill in the network configuration information automatically. Refer to Section 27.5 for more information.

The following Network Configuration screen shows the configuration of the Ethernet device for a system that will act as the gateway for a Local Area Network.

Use Tab to select the information fields and fill in appropriate information:

Use Tab to select [ OK ] when finished and press Enter.

Choosing [ Yes ] and pressing Enter will bring the machine up on the network and be ready for use. However, this does not accomplish much during installation, since the machine still needs to be rebooted.

2.10.2 Configure Gateway

If the machine will be acting as the gateway for a local area network and forwarding packets between other machines then select [ Yes ] and press Enter. If the machine is a node on a network then select [ No ] and press Enter to continue.

2.10.3 Configure Internet Services

If [ No ] is selected, various services such telnetd will not be enabled. This means that remote users will not be able to telnet into this machine. Local users will still be able to access remote machines with telnet.

These services can be enabled after installation by editing /etc/inetd.conf with your favorite text editor. See Section 27.2.1 for more information.

Select [ Yes ] if you wish to configure these services during install. An additional confirmation will display:

Select [ Yes ] to continue.

Selecting [ Yes ] will allow adding services by deleting the # at the beginning of a line.

After adding the desired services, pressing Esc will display a menu which will allow exiting and saving the changes.

2.10.4 Enabling SSH login

Selecting [ Yes ] will enable sshd(8), the daemon program for OpenSSH. This will allow secure remote access to your machine. For more information about OpenSSH see Section 14.11.

2.10.5 Anonymous FTP

2.10.6 Configure Network File System

Network File System (NFS) allows sharing of files across a network. A machine can be configured as a server, a client, or both. Refer to Section 27.3 for a more information.

2.10.7 System Console Settings

There are several options available to customize the system console.

To view and configure the options, select [ Yes ] and press Enter.

A commonly used option is the screen saver. Use the arrow keys to select Saver and then press Enter.

Select the desired screen saver using the arrow keys and then press Enter. The System Console Configuration menu will redisplay.

The default time interval is 300 seconds. To change the time interval, select Saver again. At the Screen Saver Options menu, select Timeout using the arrow keys and press Enter. A pop-up menu will appear:

The value can be changed, then select [ OK ] and press Enter to return to the System Console Configuration menu.

Selecting Exit and pressing Enter will continue with the post-installation configurations.

2.10.8 Setting the Time Zone

Setting the time zone for your machine will allow it to automatically correct for any regional time changes and perform other time zone related functions properly.

The example shown is for a machine located in the Eastern time zone of the United States. Your selections will vary according to your geographical location.

Select [ Yes ] and press Enter to set the time zone.

Select [ Yes ] or [ No ] according to how the machine's clock is configured and press Enter.

The appropriate region is selected using the arrow keys and then pressing Enter.

Select the appropriate country using the arrow keys and press Enter.

The appropriate time zone is selected using the arrow keys and pressing Enter.

Confirm the abbreviation for the time zone is correct. If it looks okay, press Enter to continue with the post-installation configuration.

2.10.9 Linux Compatibility

Selecting [ Yes ] and pressing Enter will allow running Linux software on FreeBSD. The install will add the appropriate packages for Linux compatibility.

If installing by FTP, the machine will need to be connected to the Internet. Sometimes a remote ftp site will not have all the distributions like the Linux binary compatibility. This can be installed later if necessary.

2.10.10 Mouse Settings

This option will allow you to cut and paste text in the console and user programs with a 3-button mouse. If using a 2-button mouse, refer to manual page, moused(8), after installation for details on emulating the 3-button style. This example depicts a non-USB mouse configuration (such as a PS/2 or COM port mouse):

Select [ Yes ] for a PS/2, serial or bus mouse, or [ No ] for a USB mouse and press Enter.

Use the arrow keys to select Type and press Enter.

The mouse used in this example is a PS/2 type, so the default Auto was appropriate. To change protocol, use the arrow keys to select another option. Ensure that [ OK ] is highlighted and press Enter to exit this menu.

Use the arrow keys to select Port and press Enter.

This system had a PS/2 mouse, so the default PS/2 was appropriate. To change the port, use the arrow keys and then press Enter.

Last, use the arrow keys to select Enable, and press Enter to enable and test the mouse daemon.

Move the mouse around the screen and verify the cursor shown responds properly. If it does, select [ Yes ] and press Enter. If not, the mouse has not been configured correctly -- select [ No ] and try using different configuration options.

Select Exit with the arrow keys and press Enter to return to continue with the post-installation configuration.

2.10.11 Install Packages

Packages are pre-compiled binaries and are a convenient way to install software.

Installation of one package is shown for purposes of illustration. Additional packages can also be added at this time if desired. After installation sysinstall can be used to add additional packages.

Selecting [ Yes ] and pressing Enter will be followed by the Package Selection screens:

Only packages on the current installation media are available for installation at any given time.

All packages available will be displayed if All is selected or you can select a particular category. Highlight your selection with the arrow keys and press Enter.

A menu will display showing all the packages available for the selection made:

The bash shell is shown selected. Select as many as desired by highlighting the package and pressing the Space key. A short description of each package will appear in the lower left corner of the screen.

Pressing the Tab key will toggle between the last selected package, [ OK ], and [ Cancel ].

When you have finished marking the packages for installation, press Tab once to toggle to the [ OK ] and press Enter to return to the Package Selection menu.

The left and right arrow keys will also toggle between [ OK ] and [ Cancel ]. This method can also be used to select [ OK ] and press Enter to return to the Package Selection menu.

Use the Tab and arrow keys to select [ Install ] and press Enter. You will then need to confirm that you want to install the packages:

Selecting [ OK ] and pressing Enter will start the package installation. Installing messages will appear until completed. Make note if there are any error messages.

The final configuration continues after packages are installed. If you end up not selecting any packages, and wish to return to the final configuration, select Install anyways.

2.10.12 Add Users/Groups

You should add at least one user during the installation so that you can use the system without being logged in as root. The root partition is generally small and running applications as root can quickly fill it. A bigger danger is noted below:

Select [ Yes ] and press Enter to continue with adding a user.

Select User with the arrow keys and press Enter.

The following descriptions will appear in the lower part of the screen as the items are selected with Tab to assist with entering the required information:

The login shell was changed from /bin/sh to /usr/local/bin/bash to use the bash shell that was previously installed as a package. Do not try to use a shell that does not exist or you will not be able to login. The most common shell used in the BSD-world is the C shell, which can be indicated as /bin/tcsh.

The user was also added to the wheel group to be able to become a superuser with root privileges.

When you are satisfied, press [ OK ] and the User and Group Management menu will redisplay:

Groups can also be added at this time if specific needs are known. Otherwise, this may be accessed through using sysinstall (/stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD versions older than 5.2) after installation is completed.

When you are finished adding users, select Exit with the arrow keys and press Enter to continue the installation.

2.10.13 Set the root Password

Press Enter to set the root password.

The password will need to be typed in twice correctly. Needless to say, make sure you have a way of finding the password if you forget. Notice that the password you type in is not echoed, nor are asterisks displayed.

The installation will continue after the password is successfully entered.

2.10.14 Exiting Install

If you need to configure additional network services or any other configuration, you can do it at this point or after installation with sysinstall (/stand/sysinstall in FreeBSD versions older than 5.2).

Select [ No ] with the arrow keys and press Enter to return to the Main Installation Menu.

Select [X Exit Install] with the arrow keys and press Enter. You will be asked to confirm exiting the installation:

Select [ Yes ] and remove the floppy if booting from the floppy. The CDROM drive is locked until the machine starts to reboot. The CDROM drive is then unlocked and the disk can be removed from drive (quickly).

The system will reboot so watch for any error messages that may appear, see Section 2.10.16 for more details.

2.10.15 Configure Additional Network Services

Configuring network services can be a daunting task for new users if they lack previous knowledge in this area. Networking, including the Internet, is critical to all modern operating systems including FreeBSD; as a result, it is very useful to have some understanding FreeBSD's extensive networking capabilities. Doing this during the installation will ensure users have some understanding of the various services available to them.

Network services are programs that accept input from anywhere on the network. Every effort is made to make sure these programs will not do anything “harmful”. Unfortunately, programmers are not perfect and through time there have been cases where bugs in network services have been exploited by attackers to do bad things. It is important that you only enable the network services you know that you need. If in doubt it is best if you do not enable a network service until you find out that you do need it. You can always enable it later by re-running sysinstall or by using the features provided by the /etc/rc.conf file.

Selecting the Networking option will display a menu similar to the one below:

The first option, Interfaces, was previously covered during the Section 2.10.1, thus this option can safely be ignored.

Selecting the AMD option adds support for the BSD automatic mount utility. This is usually used in conjunction with the NFS protocol (see below) for automatically mounting remote file systems. No special configuration is required here.

Next in line is the AMD Flags option. When selected, a menu will pop up for you to enter specific AMD flags. The menu already contains a set of default options:

The -a option sets the default mount location which is specified here as /.amd_mnt. The -l option specifies the default log file; however, when syslogd is used all log activity will be sent to the system log daemon. The /host directory is used to mount an exported file system from a remote host, while /net directory is used to mount an exported file system from an IP address. The /etc/amd.map file defines the default options for AMD exports.

The Anon FTP option permits anonymous FTP connections. Select this option to make this machine an anonymous FTP server. Be aware of the security risks involved with this option. Another menu will be displayed to explain the security risks and configuration in depth.

The Gateway configuration menu will set the machine up to be a gateway as explained previously. This can be used to unset the Gateway option if you accidentally selected it during the installation process.

The Inetd option can be used to configure or completely disable the inetd(8) daemon as discussed above.

The Mail option is used to configure the system's default MTA or Mail Transfer Agent. Selecting this option will bring up the following menu:

Here you are offered a choice as to which MTA to install and set as the default. An MTA is nothing more than a mail server which delivers email to users on the system or the Internet.

Selecting Sendmail will install the popular sendmail server which is the FreeBSD default. The Sendmail local option will set sendmail to be the default MTA, but disable its ability to receive incoming email from the Internet. The other options here, Postfix and Exim act similar to Sendmail. They both deliver email; however, some users prefer these alternatives to the sendmail MTA.

After selecting an MTA, or choosing not to select an MTA, the network configuration menu will appear with the next option being NFS client.

The NFS client option will configure the system to communicate with a server via NFS. An NFS server makes file systems available to other machines on the network via the NFS protocol. If this is a stand-alone machine, this option can remain unselected. The system may require more configuration later; see Section 27.3 for more information about client and server configuration.

Below that option is the NFS server option, permitting you to set the system up as an NFS server. This adds the required information to start up the RPC remote procedure call services. RPC is used to coordinate connections between hosts and programs.

Next in line is the Ntpdate option, which deals with time synchronization. When selected, a menu like the one below shows up:

From this menu, select the server which is the closest to your location. Selecting a close one will make the time synchronization more accurate as a server further from your location may have more connection latency.

The next option is the PCNFSD selection. This option will install the net/pcnfsd package from the Ports Collection. This is a useful utility which provides NFS authentication services for systems which are unable to provide their own, such as Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.

Now you must scroll down a bit to see the other options:

The rpcbind(8), rpc.statd(8), and rpc.lockd(8) utilities are all used for Remote Procedure Calls (RPC). The rpcbind utility manages communication between NFS servers and clients, and is required for NFS servers to operate correctly. The rpc.statd daemon interacts with the rpc.statd daemon on other hosts to provide status monitoring. The reported status is usually held in the /var/db/statd.status file. The next option listed here is the rpc.lockd option, which, when selected, will provide file locking services. This is usually used with rpc.statd to monitor what hosts are requesting locks and how frequently they request them. While these last two options are marvelous for debugging, they are not required for NFS servers and clients to operate correctly.

As you progress down the list the next item here is Routed, which is the routing daemon. The routed(8) utility manages network routing tables, discovers multicast routers, and supplies a copy of the routing tables to any physically connected host on the network upon request. This is mainly used for machines which act as a gateway for the local network. When selected, a menu will be presented requesting the default location of the utility. The default location is already defined for you and can be selected with the Enter key. You will then be presented with yet another menu, this time asking for the flags you wish to pass on to routed. The default is -q and it should already appear on the screen.

Next in line is the Rwhod option which, when selected, will start the rwhod(8) daemon during system initialization. The rwhod utility broadcasts system messages across the network periodically, or collects them when in “consumer” mode. More information can be found in the ruptime(1) and rwho(1) manual pages.

The next to the last option in the list is for the sshd(8) daemon. This is the secure shell server for OpenSSH and it is highly recommended over the standard telnet and FTP servers. The sshd server is used to create a secure connection from one host to another by using encrypted connections.

Finally there is the TCP Extensions option. This enables the TCP Extensions defined in RFC 1323 and RFC 1644. While on many hosts this can speed up connections, it can also cause some connections to be dropped. It is not recommended for servers, but may be beneficial for stand alone machines.

Now that you have configured the network services, you can scroll up to the very top item which is X Exit and continue on to the next configuration item or simply exit sysinstall in selecting X Exit twice then [X Exit Install].

2.10.16 FreeBSD Bootup

2.10.17 FreeBSD Shutdown

It is important to properly shutdown the operating system. Do not just turn off power. First, become a superuser by typing su at the command line and entering the root password. This will work only if the user is a member of the wheel group. Otherwise, login as root and use shutdown -h now.

It is safe to turn off the power after the shutdown command has been issued and the message “Please press any key to reboot” appears. If any key is pressed instead of turning off the power switch, the system will reboot.

You could also use the Ctrl+Alt+Del key combination to reboot the system, however this is not recommended during normal operation.

2.11.1 What to Do If Something Goes Wrong

Due to various limitations of the PC architecture, it is impossible for probing to be 100% reliable, however, there are a few things you can do if it fails.

Check the Hardware Notes document for your version of FreeBSD to make sure your hardware is supported.

If your hardware is supported and you still experience lock-ups or other problems, you will need to build a custom kernel. This will allow you to add in support for devices which are not present in the GENERIC kernel. The kernel on the boot disks is configured assuming that most hardware devices are in their factory default configuration in terms of IRQs, IO addresses, and DMA channels. If your hardware has been reconfigured, you will most likely need to edit the kernel configuration and recompile to tell FreeBSD where to find things.

It is also possible that a probe for a device not present will cause a later probe for another device that is present to fail. In that case, the probes for the conflicting driver(s) should be disabled.

2.11.2 Using MS-DOS® and Windows® File Systems

At this time, FreeBSD does not support file systems compressed with the Double Space™ application. Therefore the file system will need to be uncompressed before FreeBSD can access the data. This can be done by running the Compression Agent located in the Start> Programs > System Tools menu.

FreeBSD can support MS-DOS file systems (sometimes called FAT file systems). The mount_msdosfs(8) command grafts such file systems onto the existing directory hierarchy, allowing the file system's contents to be accessed. mount_msdosfs(8) is not usually invoked directly; instead, it is called by the system through a line in /etc/fstab or by a call to the mount(8) utility with the appropriate parameters.

A typical line in /etc/fstab is:

A typicall call to mount(8) for a MS-DOS file system looks like:

In this example, the MS-DOS file system is located on the first partition of the primary hard disk. Your situation may be different, check the output from the dmesg, and mount commands. They should produce enough information to give an idea of the partition layout.

NTFS partitions can also be mounted in a similar manner using the mount_ntfs(8) command.

2.11.3 Troubleshooting Questions and Answers

2.12.1 Installing FreeBSD on a System without a Monitor or Keyboard

This type of installation is called a “headless install”, because the machine that you are trying to install FreeBSD on either does not have a monitor attached to it, or does not even have a VGA output. How is this possible you ask? Using a serial console. A serial console is basically using another machine to act as the main display and keyboard for a system. To do this, just follow the steps to create installation floppies, explained in Section 2.3.7.

To modify these floppies to boot into a serial console, follow these steps:

That's it! You should now be able to control the headless machine through your cu session. It will ask you to put in the kern1.flp, and then it will come up with a selection of what kind of terminal to use. Select the FreeBSD color console and proceed with your install!

2.13.1 Creating an Installation CDROM

As part of each release, the FreeBSD project makes available at least two CDROM images (“ISO images”) per supported architecture. These images can be written (“burned”) to CDs if you have a CD writer, and then used to install FreeBSD. If you have a CD writer, and bandwidth is cheap, then this is the easiest way to install FreeBSD.

2.13.2 Creating a Local FTP Site with a FreeBSD Disc

FreeBSD discs are laid out in the same way as the FTP site. This makes it very easy for you to create a local FTP site that can be used by other machines on your network when installing FreeBSD.

Anyone with network connectivity to your machine can now chose a media type of FTP and type in ftp://your machine after picking “Other” in the FTP sites menu during the install.

2.13.3 Creating Installation Floppies

If you must install from floppy disk (which we suggest you do not do), either due to unsupported hardware or simply because you insist on doing things the hard way, you must first prepare some floppies for the installation.

At a minimum, you will need as many 1.44 MB floppies as it takes to hold all the files in the base (base distribution) directory. If you are preparing the floppies from DOS, then they must be formatted using the MS-DOS FORMAT command. If you are using Windows, use Explorer to format the disks (right-click on the A: drive, and select “Format”).

Do not trust factory pre-formatted floppies. Format them again yourself, just to be sure. Many problems reported by our users in the past have resulted from the use of improperly formatted media, which is why we are making a point of it now.

If you are creating the floppies on another FreeBSD machine, a format is still not a bad idea, though you do not need to put a DOS filesystem on each floppy. You can use the bsdlabel and newfs commands to put a UFS filesystem on them instead, as the following sequence of commands (for a 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy) illustrates:

Then you can mount and write to them like any other filesystem.

After you have formatted the floppies, you will need to copy the files to them. The distribution files are split into chunks conveniently sized so that five of them will fit on a conventional 1.44 MB floppy. Go through all your floppies, packing as many files as will fit on each one, until you have all of the distributions you want packed up in this fashion. Each distribution should go into a subdirectory on the floppy, e.g.: a:\base\base.aa, a:\base\base.ab, and so on.

Once you come to the Media screen during the install process, select Floppy and you will be prompted for the rest.

2.13.4 Installing from an MS-DOS Partition

To prepare for an installation from an MS-DOS partition, copy the files from the distribution into a directory called freebsd in the root directory of the partition. For example, c:\freebsd. The directory structure of the CDROM or FTP site must be partially reproduced within this directory, so we suggest using the DOS xcopy command if you are copying it from a CD. For example, to prepare for a minimal installation of FreeBSD:

Assuming that C: is where you have free space and E: is where your CDROM is mounted.

If you do not have a CDROM drive, you can download the distribution from ftp.FreeBSD.org. Each distribution is in its own directory; for example, the base distribution can be found in the 6.2/base/ directory.

For as many distributions you wish to install from an MS-DOS partition (and you have the free space for), install each one under c:\freebsd -- the BIN distribution is the only one required for a minimum installation.

2.13.5 Creating an Installation Tape

Installing from tape is probably the easiest method, short of an online FTP install or CDROM install. The installation program expects the files to be simply tarred onto the tape. After getting all of the distribution files you are interested in, simply tar them onto the tape:

When you perform the installation, you should make sure that you leave enough room in some temporary directory (which you will be allowed to choose) to accommodate the full contents of the tape you have created. Due to the non-random access nature of tapes, this method of installation requires quite a bit of temporary storage.

2.13.6 Before Installing over a Network

There are three types of network installations available. Ethernet (a standard Ethernet controller), Serial port (SLIP or PPP), or Parallel port (PLIP (laplink cable)).

For the fastest possible network installation, an Ethernet adapter is always a good choice! FreeBSD supports most common PC Ethernet cards; a table of supported cards (and their required settings) is provided in the Hardware Notes for each release of FreeBSD. If you are using one of the supported PCMCIA Ethernet cards, also be sure that it is plugged in before the laptop is powered on! FreeBSD does not, unfortunately, currently support hot insertion of PCMCIA cards during installation.

You will also need to know your IP address on the network, the netmask value for your address class, and the name of your machine. If you are installing over a PPP connection and do not have a static IP, fear not, the IP address can be dynamically assigned by your ISP. Your system administrator can tell you which values to use for your particular network setup. If you will be referring to other hosts by name rather than IP address, you will also need a name server and possibly the address of a gateway (if you are using PPP, it is your provider's IP address) to use in talking to it. If you want to install by FTP via a HTTP proxy, you will also need the proxy's address. If you do not know the answers to all or most of these questions, then you should really probably talk to your system administrator or ISP before trying this type of installation.

The SLIP support is rather primitive, and limited primarily to hard-wired links, such as a serial cable running between a laptop computer and another computer. The link should be hard-wired as the SLIP installation does not currently offer a dialing capability; that facility is provided with the PPP utility, which should be used in preference to SLIP whenever possible.

If you are using a modem, then PPP is almost certainly your only choice. Make sure that you have your service provider's information handy as you will need to know it fairly early in the installation process.

If you use PAP or CHAP to connect your ISP (in other words, if you can connect to the ISP in Windows without using a script), then all you will need to do is type in dial at the ppp prompt. Otherwise, you will need to know how to dial your ISP using the “AT commands” specific to your modem, as the PPP dialer provides only a very simple terminal emulator. Please refer to the user-ppp handbook and FAQ entries for further information. If you have problems, logging can be directed to the screen using the command set log local ....

If a hard-wired connection to another FreeBSD (2.0-R or later) machine is available, you might also consider installing over a “laplink” parallel port cable. The data rate over the parallel port is much higher than what is typically possible over a serial line (up to 50 kbytes/sec), thus resulting in a quicker installation.

3.2.1 The Console

If you have not configured FreeBSD to automatically start a graphical environment during startup, the system will present you with a login prompt after it boots, right after the startup scripts finish running. You will see something similar to:

The messages might be a bit different on your system, but you will see something similar. The last two lines are what we are interested in right now. The second last line reads:

This line contains some bits of information about the system you have just booted. You are looking at a “FreeBSD” console, running on an Intel or compatible processor of the x86 architecture[1]. The name of this machine (every UNIX machine has a name) is pc3.example.org, and you are now looking at its system console--the ttyv0 terminal.

Finally, the last line is always:

This is the part where you are supposed to type in your “username” to log into FreeBSD. The next section describes how you can do this.

3.2.2 Logging into FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a multiuser, multiprocessing system. This is the formal description that is usually given to a system that can be used by many different people, who simultaneously run a lot of programs on a single machine.

Every multiuser system needs some way to distinguish one “user” from the rest. In FreeBSD (and all the UNIX-like operating systems), this is accomplished by requiring that every user must “log into” the system before being able to run programs. Every user has a unique name (the “username”) and a personal, secret key (the “password”). FreeBSD will ask for these two before allowing a user to run any programs.

Right after FreeBSD boots and finishes running its startup scripts[2], it will present you with a prompt and ask for a valid username:

For the sake of this example, let us assume that your username is john. Type john at this prompt and press Enter. You should then be presented with a prompt to enter a “password”:

Type in john's password now, and press Enter. The password is not echoed! You need not worry about this right now. Suffice it to say that it is done for security reasons.

If you have typed your password correctly, you should by now be logged into FreeBSD and ready to try out all the available commands.

You should see the MOTD or message of the day followed by a command prompt (a #, $, or % character). This indicates you have successfully logged into FreeBSD.

3.2.3 Multiple Consoles

Running UNIX commands in one console is fine, but FreeBSD can run many programs at once. Having one console where commands can be typed would be a bit of a waste when an operating system like FreeBSD can run dozens of programs at the same time. This is where “virtual consoles” can be very helpful.

FreeBSD can be configured to present you with many different virtual consoles. You can switch from one of them to any other virtual console by pressing a couple of keys on your keyboard. Each console has its own different output channel, and FreeBSD takes care of properly redirecting keyboard input and monitor output as you switch from one virtual console to the next.

Special key combinations have been reserved by FreeBSD for switching consoles[3]. You can use Alt-F1, Alt-F2, through Alt-F8 to switch to a different virtual console in FreeBSD.

As you are switching from one console to the next, FreeBSD takes care of saving and restoring the screen output. The result is an “illusion” of having multiple “virtual” screens and keyboards that you can use to type commands for FreeBSD to run. The programs that you launch on one virtual console do not stop running when that console is not visible. They continue running when you have switched to a different virtual console.

3.2.4 The /etc/ttys File

The default configuration of FreeBSD will start up with eight virtual consoles. This is not a hardwired setting though, and you can easily customize your installation to boot with more or fewer virtual consoles. The number and settings of the virtual consoles are configured in the /etc/ttys file.

You can use the /etc/ttys file to configure the virtual consoles of FreeBSD. Each uncommented line in this file (lines that do not start with a # character) contains settings for a single terminal or virtual console. The default version of this file that ships with FreeBSD configures nine virtual consoles, and enables eight of them. They are the lines that start with ttyv:

For a detailed description of every column in this file and all the options you can use to set things up for the virtual consoles, consult the ttys(5) manual page.

3.2.5 Single User Mode Console

A detailed description of what “single user mode” is can be found in Section 12.6.2. It is worth noting that there is only one console when you are running FreeBSD in single user mode. There are no virtual consoles available. The settings of the single user mode console can also be found in the /etc/ttys file. Look for the line that starts with console:

3.2.6 Changing Console Video Modes

The FreeBSD console default video mode may be adjusted to 1024x768, 1280x1024, or any other size supported by your graphics chip and monitor. To use a different video mode, you first must recompile your kernel and include two additional options:

Once the kernel has been recompiled with these two options, you can then determine what video modes are supported by your hardware by using the vidcontrol(1) utility. To get a list of supported video modes issue the following:

The output of this command is a list of video modes that are supported by your hardware. You can then choose to use a new video mode by passing it to vidcontrol(1) in a root console:

If the new video mode is acceptable, it can be permanently set on boot by setting it in the /etc/rc.conf file:

3.3.1 Symbolic Permissions

Symbolic permissions, sometimes referred to as symbolic expressions, use characters in place of octal values to assign permissions to files or directories. Symbolic expressions use the syntax of (who) (action) (permissions), where the following values are available:

These values are used with the chmod(1) command just like before, but with letters. For an example, you could use the following command to block other users from accessing FILE:

A comma separated list can be provided when more than one set of changes to a file must be made. For example the following command will remove the group and “world” write permission on FILE, then it adds the execute permissions for everyone:

3.3.2 FreeBSD File Flags

In addition to file permissions discussed previously, FreeBSD supports the use of “file flags.” These flags add an additional level of security and control over files, but not directories.

These file flags add an additional level of control over files, helping to ensure that in some cases not even the root can remove or alter files.

File flags are altered by using the chflags(1) utility, using a simple interface. For example, to enable the system undeletable flag on the file file1, issue the following command:

And to disable the system undeletable flag, simply issue the previous command with “no” in front of the sunlink. Observe:

To view the flags of this file, use the ls(1) command with the -lo flags:

The output should look like the following:

Several flags may only added or removed to files by the root user. In other cases, the file owner may set these flags. It is recommended that administrators read over the chflags(1) and chflags(2) manual pages for more information.

3.6.1 The fstab File

During the boot process, file systems listed in /etc/fstab are automatically mounted (unless they are listed with the noauto option).

The /etc/fstab file contains a list of lines of the following format:

Consult the fstab(5) manual page for more information on the format of the /etc/fstab file and the options it contains.

3.6.2 The mount Command

The mount(8) command is what is ultimately used to mount file systems.

In its most basic form, you use:

There are plenty of options, as mentioned in the mount(8) manual page, but the most common are:

The -o option takes a comma-separated list of the options, including the following:

3.6.3 The umount Command

The umount(8) command takes, as a parameter, one of a mountpoint, a device name, or the -a or -A option.

All forms take -f to force unmounting, and -v for verbosity. Be warned that -f is not generally a good idea. Forcibly unmounting file systems might crash the computer or damage data on the file system.

-a and -A are used to unmount all mounted file systems, possibly modified by the file system types listed after -t. -A, however, does not attempt to unmount the root file system.

3.9.1 Changing Your Shell

The easiest way to change your shell is to use the chsh command. Running chsh will place you into the editor that is in your EDITOR environment variable; if it is not set, you will be placed in vi. Change the “Shell:” line accordingly.

You can also give chsh the -s option; this will set your shell for you, without requiring you to enter an editor. For example, if you wanted to change your shell to bash, the following should do the trick:

3.11.1 Creating Device Nodes

When adding a new device to your system, or compiling in support for additional devices, new device nodes must be created.

3.13.1 Manual Pages

The most comprehensive documentation on FreeBSD is in the form of manual pages. Nearly every program on the system comes with a short reference manual explaining the basic operation and various arguments. These manuals can be viewed with the man command. Use of the man command is simple:

command is the name of the command you wish to learn about. For example, to learn more about ls command type:

The online manual is divided up into numbered sections:

1. User commands.

2. System calls and error numbers.

3. Functions in the C libraries.

4. Device drivers.

5. File formats.

6. Games and other diversions.

7. Miscellaneous information.

8. System maintenance and operation commands.

9. Kernel developers.

In some cases, the same topic may appear in more than one section of the online manual. For example, there is a chmod user command and a chmod() system call. In this case, you can tell the man command which one you want by specifying the section:

This will display the manual page for the user command chmod. References to a particular section of the online manual are traditionally placed in parenthesis in written documentation, so chmod(1) refers to the chmod user command and chmod(2) refers to the system call.

This is fine if you know the name of the command and simply wish to know how to use it, but what if you cannot recall the command name? You can use man to search for keywords in the command descriptions by using the -k switch:

With this command you will be presented with a list of commands that have the keyword “mail” in their descriptions. This is actually functionally equivalent to using the apropos command.

So, you are looking at all those fancy commands in /usr/bin but do not have the faintest idea what most of them actually do? Simply do:

or

which does the same thing.

3.13.2 GNU Info Files

FreeBSD includes many applications and utilities produced by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). In addition to manual pages, these programs come with more extensive hypertext documents called info files which can be viewed with the info command or, if you installed emacs, the info mode of emacs.

To use the info(1) command, simply type:

For a brief introduction, type h. For a quick command reference, type ?.

4.4.1 Installing a Package

You can use the pkg_add(1) utility to install a FreeBSD software package from a local file or from a server on the network.

If you do not have a source of local packages (such as a FreeBSD CD-ROM set) then it will probably be easier to use the -r option to pkg_add(1). This will cause the utility to automatically determine the correct object format and release and then fetch and install the package from an FTP site.

The example above would download the correct package and add it without any further user intervention. If you want to specify an alternative FreeBSD Packages Mirror, instead of the main distribution site, you have to set the PACKAGESITE environment variable accordingly, to override the default settings. pkg_add(1) uses fetch(3) to download the files, which honors various environment variables, including FTP_PASSIVE_MODE, FTP_PROXY, and FTP_PASSWORD. You may need to set one or more of these if you are behind a firewall, or need to use an FTP/HTTP proxy. See fetch(3) for the complete list. Note that in the example above lsof is used instead of lsof-4.56.4. When the remote fetching feature is used, the version number of the package must be removed. pkg_add(1) will automatically fetch the latest version of the application.

Package files are distributed in .tgz and .tbz formats. You can find them at ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/, or on the FreeBSD CD-ROM distribution. Every CD on the FreeBSD 4-CD set (and the PowerPak, etc.) contains packages in the /packages directory. The layout of the packages is similar to that of the /usr/ports tree. Each category has its own directory, and every package can be found within the All directory.

The directory structure of the package system matches the ports layout; they work with each other to form the entire package/port system.

4.4.2 Managing Packages

pkg_info(1) is a utility that lists and describes the various packages installed.

pkg_version(1) is a utility that summarizes the versions of all installed packages. It compares the package version to the current version found in the ports tree.

The symbols in the second column indicate the relative age of the installed version and the version available in the local ports tree.

4.4.3 Deleting a Package

To remove a previously installed software package, use the pkg_delete(1) utility.

Note that pkg_delete(1) requires the full package name and number; the above command would not work if xchat was given instead of xchat-1.7.1. It is, however, easy to use pkg_version(1) to find the version of the installed package. You could instead simply use a wildcard:

in this case, all packages whose names start with xchat will be deleted.

4.4.4 Miscellaneous

All package information is stored within the /var/db/pkg directory. The installed file list and descriptions of each package can be found within files in this directory.

4.5.1 Obtaining the Ports Collection

Before you can install ports, you must first obtain the Ports Collection--which is essentially a set of Makefiles, patches, and description files placed in /usr/ports.

When installing your FreeBSD system, sysinstall asked if you would like to install the Ports Collection. If you chose no, you can follow these instructions to obtain the ports collection:

4.5.2 Installing Ports

The first thing that should be explained when it comes to the Ports Collection is what is actually meant by a “skeleton”. In a nutshell, a port skeleton is a minimal set of files that tell your FreeBSD system how to cleanly compile and install a program. Each port skeleton includes:

• A Makefile. The Makefile contains various statements that specify how the application should be compiled and where it should be installed on your system.

• A distinfo file. This file contains information about the files that must be downloaded to build the port, and their checksums (using md5(1) and sha256(1)), to verify that files have not been corrupted during the download.

• A files directory. This directory contains patches to make the program compile and install on your FreeBSD system. Patches are basically small files that specify changes to particular files. They are in plain text format, and basically say “Remove line 10” or “Change line 26 to this ...”. Patches are also known as “diffs” because they are generated by the diff(1) program.

  This directory may also contain other files used to build the port.

• A pkg-descr file. This is a more detailed, often multiple-line, description of the program.

• A pkg-plist file. This is a list of all the files that will be installed by the port. It also tells the ports system what files to remove upon deinstallation.

Some ports have other files, such as pkg-message. The ports system uses these files to handle special situations. If you want more details on these files, and on ports in general, check out the FreeBSD Porter's Handbook.

The port includes instructions on how to build source code, but does not include the actual source code. You can get the source code from a CD-ROM or from the Internet. Source code is distributed in whatever manner the software author desires. Frequently this is a tarred and gzipped file, but it might be compressed with some other tool or even uncompressed. The program source code, whatever form it comes in, is called a “distfile”. The two methods for installing a FreeBSD port are described below.

The Ports Collection makes an assumption that you have a working Internet connection. If you do not, you will need to put a copy of the distfile into /usr/ports/distfiles manually.

To begin, change to the directory for the port you want to install:

Once inside the lsof directory, you will see the port skeleton. The next step is to compile, or “build”, the port. This is done by simply typing make at the prompt. Once you have done so, you should see something like this:

Notice that once the compile is complete you are returned to your prompt. The next step is to install the port. In order to install it, you simply need to tack one word onto the make command, and that word is install:

Once you are returned to your prompt, you should be able to run the application you just installed. Since lsof is a program that runs with increased privileges, a security warning is shown. During the building and installation of ports, you should take heed of any other warnings that may appear.

It is a good idea to delete the working subdirectory, which contains all the temporary files used during compilation. Not only does it consume valuable disk space, but it would also cause problems later when upgrading to the newer version of the port.

Some third-party DVD-ROM products such as the FreeBSD Toolkit from the FreeBSD Mall contain distfiles. They can be used with the Ports Collection. Mount the DVD-ROM on /cdrom. If you use a different mount point, set CD_MOUNTPTS make variable. The needed distfiles will be automatically used if they are present on the disk.

The ports system uses fetch(1) to download the files, which honors various environment variables, including FTP_PASSIVE_MODE, FTP_PROXY, and FTP_PASSWORD. You may need to set one or more of these if you are behind a firewall, or need to use an FTP/HTTP proxy. See fetch(3) for the complete list.

For users which cannot be connected all the time, the make fetch option is provided. Just run this command at the top level directory (/usr/ports) and the required files will be downloaded for you. This command will also work in the lower level categories, for example: /usr/ports/net. Note that if a port depends on libraries or other ports this will not fetch the distfiles of those ports too. Replace fetch with fetch-recursive if you want to fetch all the dependencies of a port too.

In some rare cases, users may need to acquire the tarballs from a site other than the MASTER_SITES (the location where files are downloaded from). You can override the MASTER_SITES option with the following command:

In this example we change the MASTER_SITES option to ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/.

4.5.3 Removing Installed Ports

Now that you know how to install ports, you are probably wondering how to remove them, just in case you install one and later on decide that you installed the wrong port. We will remove our previous example (which was lsof for those of you not paying attention). Ports are being removed exactly the same as the packages (discussed in the Packages section), using the pkg_delete(1) command:

4.5.4 Upgrading Ports

First, list outdated ports that have a newer version available in the Ports Collection with the pkg_version(1) command:

4.5.5 Ports and Disk Space

Using the Ports Collection will use up disk space over time. After building and installing software from the ports, you should always remember to clean up the temporary work directories using the make clean command. You can sweep the whole Ports Collection with the following command:

You will accumulate a lot of old source distribution files in the distfiles directory over time. You can remove them by hand, or you can use the following command to delete all the distfiles that are no longer referenced by any ports:

Or to remove all distfiles not referenced by any port currently installed on your system:

Do not forget to remove the installed ports once you no longer need them. A nice tool to help automate this task is available from the ports-mgmt/pkg_cutleaves port.

5.2.1 Why X?

X is not the first window system written for UNIX, but it is the most popular of them. X's original development team had worked on another window system prior to writing X. That system's name was “W” (for “Window”). X was just the next letter in the Roman alphabet.

X can be called “X”, “X Window System”, “X11”, and a number of other terms. You may find that using the term “X Windows” to describe X11 can be offensive to some people; for a bit more insight on this, see X(7).

5.2.2 The X Client/Server Model

X was designed from the beginning to be network-centric, and adopts a “client-server” model.

In the X model, the “X server” runs on the computer that has the keyboard, monitor, and mouse attached. The server's responsibility includes tasks such as managing the display, handling input from the keyboard and mouse, and so on. Each X application (such as XTerm, or Netscape) is a “client”. A client sends messages to the server such as “Please draw a window at these coordinates”, and the server sends back messages such as “The user just clicked on the OK button”.

In a home or small office environment, the X server and the X clients commonly run on the same computer. However, it is perfectly possible to run the X server on a less powerful desktop computer, and run X applications (the clients) on, say, the powerful and expensive machine that serves the office. In this scenario the communication between the X client and server takes place over the network.

This confuses some people, because the X terminology is exactly backward to what they expect. They expect the “X server” to be the big powerful machine down the hall, and the “X client” to be the machine on their desk.

It is important to remember that the X server is the machine with the monitor and keyboard, and the X clients are the programs that display the windows.

There is nothing in the protocol that forces the client and server machines to be running the same operating system, or even to be running on the same type of computer. It is certainly possible to run an X server on Microsoft Windows or Apple's Mac OS, and there are various free and commercial applications available that do exactly that.

5.2.3 The Window Manager

The X design philosophy is much like the UNIX design philosophy, “tools, not policy”. This means that X does not try to dictate how a task is to be accomplished. Instead, tools are provided to the user, and it is the user's responsibility to decide how to use those tools.

This philosophy extends to X not dictating what windows should look like on screen, how to move them around with the mouse, what keystrokes should be used to move between windows (i.e., Alt+Tab, in the case of Microsoft Windows), what the title bars on each window should look like, whether or not they have close buttons on them, and so on.

Instead, X delegates this responsibility to an application called a “Window Manager”. There are dozens of window managers available for X: AfterStep, Blackbox, ctwm, Enlightenment, fvwm, Sawfish, twm, Window Maker, and more. Each of these window managers provides a different look and feel; some of them support “virtual desktops”; some of them allow customized keystrokes to manage the desktop; some have a “Start” button or similar device; some are “themeable”, allowing a complete change of look-and-feel by applying a new theme. These window managers, and many more, are available in the x11-wm category of the Ports Collection.

In addition, the KDE and GNOME desktop environments both have their own window managers which integrate with the desktop.

Each window manager also has a different configuration mechanism; some expect configuration file written by hand, others feature GUI tools for most of the configuration tasks; at least one (Sawfish) has a configuration file written in a dialect of the Lisp language.

5.2.4 Widgets

The X approach of providing tools and not policy extends to the widgets seen on screen in each application.

“Widget” is a term for all the items in the user interface that can be clicked or manipulated in some way; buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, icons, lists, and so on. Microsoft Windows calls these “controls”.

Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS both have a very rigid widget policy. Application developers are supposed to ensure that their applications share a common look and feel. With X, it was not considered sensible to mandate a particular graphical style, or set of widgets to adhere to.

As a result, do not expect X applications to have a common look and feel. There are several popular widget sets and variations, including the original Athena widget set from MIT, Motif® (on which the widget set in Microsoft Windows was modeled, all bevelled edges and three shades of grey), OpenLook, and others.

Most newer X applications today will use a modern-looking widget set, either Qt, used by KDE, or GTK+, used by the GNOME project. In this respect, there is some convergence in look-and-feel of the UNIX desktop, which certainly makes things easier for the novice user.

5.4.1 Before Starting

Before configuration of X11 the following information about the target system is needed:

• Monitor specifications

• Video Adapter chipset

• Video Adapter memory

The specifications for the monitor are used by X11 to determine the resolution and refresh rate to run at. These specifications can usually be obtained from the documentation that came with the monitor or from the manufacturer's website. There are two ranges of numbers that are needed, the horizontal scan rate and the vertical synchronization rate.

The video adapter's chipset defines what driver module X11 uses to talk to the graphics hardware. With most chipsets, this can be automatically determined, but it is still useful to know in case the automatic detection does not work correctly.

Video memory on the graphic adapter determines the resolution and color depth which the system can run at. This is important to know so the user knows the limitations of the system.

5.4.2 Configuring X11

As of version 7.3, Xorg can often work without any configuration file by simply typing at prompt:

If this does not work, or if the default configuration is not acceptable, then X11 must be configured manually. Configuration of X11 is a multi-step process. The first step is to build an initial configuration file. As the super user, simply run:

This will generate an X11 configuration skeleton file in the /root directory called xorg.conf.new (whether you su(1) or do a direct login affects the inherited supervisor $HOME directory variable). The X11 program will attempt to probe the graphics hardware on the system and write a configuration file to load the proper drivers for the detected hardware on the target system.

The next step is to test the existing configuration to verify that Xorg can work with the graphics hardware on the target system. To perform this task, type:

If a black and grey grid and an X mouse cursor appear, the configuration was successful. To exit the test, just press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace simultaneously.

Next, tune the xorg.conf.new configuration file to taste. Open the file in a text editor such as emacs(1) or ee(1). First, add the frequencies for the target system's monitor. These are usually expressed as a horizontal and vertical synchronization rate. These values are added to the xorg.conf.new file under the "Monitor" section:

The HorizSync and VertRefresh keywords may be missing in the configuration file. If they are, they need to be added, with the correct horizontal synchronization rate placed after the HorizSync keyword and the vertical synchronization rate after the VertRefresh keyword. In the example above the target monitor's rates were entered.

X allows DPMS (Energy Star) features to be used with capable monitors. The xset(1) program controls the time-outs and can force standby, suspend, or off modes. If you wish to enable DPMS features for your monitor, you must add the following line to the monitor section:

While the xorg.conf.new configuration file is still open in an editor, select the default resolution and color depth desired. This is defined in the "Screen" section:

The DefaultDepth keyword describes the color depth to run at by default. This can be overridden with the -depth command line switch to Xorg(1). The Modes keyword describes the resolution to run at for the given color depth. Note that only VESA standard modes are supported as defined by the target system's graphics hardware. In the example above, the default color depth is twenty-four bits per pixel. At this color depth, the accepted resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels.

Finally, write the configuration file and test it using the test mode given above.

If all is well, the configuration file needs to be installed in a common location where Xorg(1) can find it. This is typically /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.

The X11 configuration process is now complete. Xorg may be now started with the startx(1) utility. The X11 server may also be started with the use of xdm(1).

5.4.3 Advanced Configuration Topics

5.5.1 Type1 Fonts

The default fonts that ship with X11 are less than ideal for typical desktop publishing applications. Large presentation fonts show up jagged and unprofessional looking, and small fonts in Netscape are almost completely unintelligible. However, there are several free, high quality Type1 (PostScript®) fonts available which can be readily used with X11. For instance, the URW font collection (x11-fonts/urwfonts) includes high quality versions of standard type1 fonts (Times Roman®, Helvetica®, Palatino® and others). The Freefonts collection (x11-fonts/freefonts) includes many more fonts, but most of them are intended for use in graphics software such as the Gimp, and are not complete enough to serve as screen fonts. In addition, X11 can be configured to use TrueType fonts with a minimum of effort. For more details on this, see the X(7) manual page or the section on TrueType fonts.

To install the above Type1 font collections from the ports collection, run the following commands:

And likewise with the freefont or other collections. To have the X server detect these fonts, add an appropriate line to the X server configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf), which reads:

Alternatively, at the command line in the X session run:

This will work but will be lost when the X session is closed, unless it is added to the startup file (~/.xinitrc for a normal startx session, or ~/.xsession when logging in through a graphical login manager like XDM). A third way is to use the new /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf file: see the section on anti-aliasing.

5.5.2 TrueType® Fonts

Xorg has built in support for rendering TrueType fonts. There are two different modules that can enable this functionality. The freetype module is used in this example because it is more consistent with the other font rendering back-ends. To enable the freetype module just add the following line to the "Module" section of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Now make a directory for the TrueType fonts (for example, /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType) and copy all of the TrueType fonts into this directory. Keep in mind that TrueType fonts cannot be directly taken from a Macintosh®; they must be in UNIX/MS-DOS/Windows format for use by X11. Once the files have been copied into this directory, use ttmkfdir to create a fonts.dir file, so that the X font renderer knows that these new files have been installed. ttmkfdir is available from the FreeBSD Ports Collection as x11-fonts/ttmkfdir.

Now add the TrueType directory to the font path. This is just the same as described above for Type1 fonts, that is, use

or add a FontPath line to the xorg.conf file.

That's it. Now Netscape, Gimp, StarOffice™, and all of the other X applications should now recognize the installed TrueType fonts. Extremely small fonts (as with text in a high resolution display on a web page) and extremely large fonts (within StarOffice) will look much better now.

5.5.3 Anti-Aliased Fonts

Anti-aliasing has been available in X11 since XFree86 4.0.2. However, font configuration was cumbersome before the introduction of XFree86 4.3.0. Beginning with XFree86 4.3.0, all fonts in X11 that are found in /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ and ~/.fonts/ are automatically made available for anti-aliasing to Xft-aware applications. Not all applications are Xft-aware, but many have received Xft support. Examples of Xft-aware applications include Qt 2.3 and higher (the toolkit for the KDE desktop), GTK+ 2.0 and higher (the toolkit for the GNOME desktop), and Mozilla 1.2 and higher.

In order to control which fonts are anti-aliased, or to configure anti-aliasing properties, create (or edit, if it already exists) the file /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf. Several advanced features of the Xft font system can be tuned using this file; this section describes only some simple possibilities. For more details, please see fonts-conf(5).

This file must be in XML format. Pay careful attention to case, and make sure all tags are properly closed. The file begins with the usual XML header followed by a DOCTYPE definition, and then the <fontconfig> tag:

As previously stated, all fonts in /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/ as well as ~/.fonts/ are already made available to Xft-aware applications. If you wish to add another directory outside of these two directory trees, add a line similar to the following to /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf:

After adding new fonts, and especially new font directories, you should run the following command to rebuild the font caches:

Anti-aliasing makes borders slightly fuzzy, which makes very small text more readable and removes “staircases” from large text, but can cause eyestrain if applied to normal text. To exclude font sizes smaller than 14 point from anti-aliasing, include these lines:

Spacing for some monospaced fonts may also be inappropriate with anti-aliasing. This seems to be an issue with KDE, in particular. One possible fix for this is to force the spacing for such fonts to be 100. Add the following lines:

(this aliases the other common names for fixed fonts as "mono"), and then add:

Certain fonts, such as Helvetica, may have a problem when anti-aliased. Usually this manifests itself as a font that seems cut in half vertically. At worst, it may cause applications such as Mozilla to crash. To avoid this, consider adding the following to local.conf:

Once you have finished editing local.conf make sure you end the file with the </fontconfig> tag. Not doing this will cause your changes to be ignored.

The default font set that comes with X11 is not very desirable when it comes to anti-aliasing. A much better set of default fonts can be found in the x11-fonts/bitstream-vera port. This port will install a /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf file if one does not exist already. If the file does exist, the port will create a /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf-vera file. Merge the contents of this file into /usr/local/etc/fonts/local.conf, and the Bitstream fonts will automatically replace the default X11 Serif, Sans Serif, and Monospaced fonts.

Finally, users can add their own settings via their personal .fonts.conf files. To do this, each user should simply create a ~/.fonts.conf. This file must also be in XML format.

One last point: with an LCD screen, sub-pixel sampling may be desired. This basically treats the (horizontally separated) red, green and blue components separately to improve the horizontal resolution; the results can be dramatic. To enable this, add the line somewhere in the local.conf file:

Anti-aliasing should be enabled the next time the X server is started. However, programs must know how to take advantage of it. At present, the Qt toolkit does, so the entire KDE environment can use anti-aliased fonts. GTK+ and GNOME can also be made to use anti-aliasing via the “Font” capplet (see Section 5.7.1.3 for details). By default, Mozilla 1.2 and greater will automatically use anti-aliasing. To disable this, rebuild Mozilla with the -DWITHOUT_XFT flag.

5.6.1 Overview

The X Display Manager (XDM) is an optional part of the X Window System that is used for login session management. This is useful for several types of situations, including minimal “X Terminals”, desktops, and large network display servers. Since the X Window System is network and protocol independent, there are a wide variety of possible configurations for running X clients and servers on different machines connected by a network. XDM provides a graphical interface for choosing which display server to connect to, and entering authorization information such as a login and password combination.

Think of XDM as providing the same functionality to the user as the getty(8) utility (see Section 24.3.2 for details). That is, it performs system logins to the display being connected to and then runs a session manager on behalf of the user (usually an X window manager). XDM then waits for this program to exit, signaling that the user is done and should be logged out of the display. At this point, XDM can display the login and display chooser screens for the next user to login.

5.6.2 Using XDM

The XDM daemon program is located in /usr/local/bin/xdm. This program can be run at any time as root and it will start managing the X display on the local machine. If XDM is to be run every time the machine boots up, a convenient way to do this is by adding an entry to /etc/ttys. For more information about the format and usage of this file, see Section 24.3.2.1. There is a line in the default /etc/ttys file for running the XDM daemon on a virtual terminal:

By default this entry is disabled; in order to enable it change field 5 from off to on and restart init(8) using the directions in Section 24.3.2.2. The first field, the name of the terminal this program will manage, is ttyv8. This means that XDM will start running on the 9th virtual terminal.

5.6.3 Configuring XDM

The XDM configuration directory is located in /usr/local/lib/X11/xdm. In this directory there are several files used to change the behavior and appearance of XDM. Typically these files will be found:

Also in this directory are a few scripts and programs used to set up the desktop when XDM is running. The purpose of each of these files will be briefly described. The exact syntax and usage of all of these files is described in xdm(1).

The default configuration is a simple rectangular login window with the hostname of the machine displayed at the top in a large font and “Login:” and “Password:” prompts below. This is a good starting point for changing the look and feel of XDM screens.

5.6.4 Running a Network Display Server

In order for other clients to connect to the display server, you must edit the access control rules and enable the connection listener. By default these are set to conservative values. To make XDM listen for connections, first comment out a line in the xdm-config file:

and then restart XDM. Remember that comments in app-defaults files begin with a “!” character, not the usual “#”. More strict access controls may be desired -- look at the example entries in Xaccess, and refer to the xdm(1) manual page for further information.

5.6.5 Replacements for XDM

Several replacements for the default XDM program exist. One of them, kdm (bundled with KDE) is described later in this chapter. The kdm display manager offers many visual improvements and cosmetic frills, as well as the functionality to allow users to choose their window manager of choice at login time.

5.7.1 GNOME