Unlike Linux that uses Bash shell, the default shell in FreeBSD is csh or tcsh. Linux users are used to tab completion, which is not the default behavior of C [...]]]> I heard this so many times from different people that CLI in FreeBSD is much less user-friendly than CLI in Linux. But is it true?

Unlike Linux that uses Bash shell, the default shell in FreeBSD is csh or tcsh. Linux users are used to tab completion, which is not the default behavior of C Shell. If you need to have tab completion, all you need to do is to add one line to your C shell configuration file (~/.cshrc) :

set autolist

And you will have your good old tab completion in C Shell.

I have [...]]]> If you are running Mac OS X and upgraded to the recent 10.5.7 and you are using a bluetooth mouse or keyboard, then you are most likely suffering from the same problem that I do: Bluetooth device loses connection to your mac after a few hours of working. and its a real PITA.

I have been struggling with this since I upgraded to 10.5.7 and haven’t found a working solution, until I recently tried this and it worked like a magic:

sudo killall -HUP blued

You only need to open up a Terminal.app window and run this command. This command sends a HUP (hangup) signal to bluetooth daemon, that actually is a soft-reset command. It causes blued to reload the configuration and brings your bluetooth device back to life.

Update 1: The latest bluetooth firmware update from Apple didn’t solve the problem. It still happens (less frequently tough) and needs to kick blued to work.

One of the most important parts [...]]]> I am type of person who likes to build everything from source code in FreeBSD to get better performance and other customizations. It has become a habit to play with ports tree and system source code and now I believe I have my own template for various server platforms.

One of the most important parts of each configuration template is the /etc/make.conf file. This is were you can change general behavior of the build system. This file is where you actually say which compiler optimizations should be used or what options has to be considered as defaults. Good news is that ports collection as well as the operating system itself honor these configuration.

Here is how a typical make.conf on one of my boxes look like:
CPUTYPE?=nocona

OPTIMIZED_CFLAGS=       YES
WITHOUT_X11=            YES
BUILD_OPTIMIZED=        YES
WITH_CPUFLAGS=          YES
WITHOUT_DEBUG=          YES
WITH_OPTIMIZED_CFLAGS=  YES
NO_PROFILE=             YES
BUILD_STATIC=        YES

The CPUTYPE variable tells gcc to optimize generated binary code for specified processor. In this case I am using 64bit Xeon processor architecture and “nocona” is the correct CPUTYPE to use. You may want to use “pentium4” on a typical Intel P4 CPU. A list of possible CPUTYPE values can be found in the sample make.conf file located at /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf.

The CFLAGS variable indicates what parameters should be passed to gcc compiler when compiling typical programs such as ports or when building the whole operating system (i.e. buildworld process). I have been using this for a few years now and I haven’t experienced any issues in generated binaries.

The COPTFLAGS variables only applies to kernel builds. So if you need special compiler optimization for kernel, this is the variable you should consider using.

The KERNCONF tells system to compile one or more kernels based on the existing configuration files. In this example I have two kernels, first is GENERIC which is the default kernel file and exists in all systems by default and the other is the customized kernel configuration file called SERVER that I use on my typical servers. Both kernels will be built when running “make kernel“. The first will be installed and used as the default kernel.

Everything else here is some defaults to be used mostly for ports. They can be found by looking into ports Makefile or the default make.conf file at /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf.

1- You need to know accurately when you should go for lunch or back home
2- You need accurate time in your event log files for further analysis
3- Many programs need to have the correct date and [...]]]> Keeping accurate time on a host (either a server or a workstation) is important because:

1- You need to know accurately when you should go for lunch or back home
2- You need accurate time in your event log files for further analysis
3- Many programs need to have the correct date and time to function (e.g. MTA)
4- You need correct timestamps on your files

Given above facts, you will need to enable NTP on your hosts and keep your system clock in sync with public time servers.

First you should make sure that your timezone setting is correct. The latest timezone information can be updated by installing “zoneinfo” port from /usr/ports/misc/zoneinfo:


# cd /usr/ports/misc/zoneinfo/
# make install clean


and run tzsetup(8) to make sure you have selected the correct timezone.

Now, to enable automatic time sync during system startup, you need to add a few lines to your /etc/rc.conf file:

ntpdate_enable="YES"
ntpdate_flags="-b pool.ntp.org"


This will make your system to sync the clock upon startup. I use NTP pool at “pool.ntp.org” that suggests a NTP server from a large pool of available time servers. However you may use your favorite/local NTP server.

You can also synchronize your time manually by invoking ntpdate(8) from command line, passing an NTP server address to it:

# ntpdate time.nist.gov


I would really appreciate your feedbacks on the current book and suggestions for future [...]]]> So after a while, I finally managed to launch a website for my book, “Network Administration with FreeBSD 7“. The new website is actually a blog and I would cross-post the topics related to the book on both websites.

I would really appreciate your feedbacks on the current book and suggestions for future editions.

This book is something that I have been looking for since I started with FreeBSD back in 1997. [...]]]>
Network Administration with FreeBSD 7 is the book that I have been working on for past year. And now it is published by Packt and is available for purchase from various bookstores.

This book is something that I have been looking for since I started with FreeBSD back in 1997. I needed a practical book with working examples of how to optimize my FreeBSD installations for various types of applications. And I never found that book, until I recently decided to write one.

“Network Administration with FreeBSD 7” is unique in several ways:

• I tried to cover the exciting new features and improvements introduced in FreeBSD 7
• It is full of tips and tricks on how to optimize your installation from optimizing disk I/O, network, virtual memory, etc.
• It covers IPv4 and IPv6 configuration as well and bridging and routing in FreeBSD
• It has working examples of different IPSec, GRE, PPP and GIF scenarios
• I tried to cover Jail virtualization in working real world examples
• Keeping your system up to date and customizing system for specific applications is thoroughly covered

I tried to stop telling stories in the book and give more real world examples instead, so reading this book would not make you smile

An article named Tunneling with FreeBSD (taken from book) is also available on PACKT website.

Update: The book has its own website at http://freebsdbook.com

The upcoming release of FreeBSD 7 is a major milestone for all FreeBSD developers and users. It is the most amazing release I have ever had the chance to play with. There [...]]]> I came across this interesting article about upcoming FreeBSD 7 that outlines some of the most important changes in this release.

The upcoming release of FreeBSD 7 is a major milestone for all FreeBSD developers and users. It is the most amazing release I have ever had the chance to play with. There are plenty of new features and many improvements, especially in networking (which is my area of interest).
I have had this chance to play with MySQL 5.1 running on FreeBSD 7 on top of 8 cores of Xeon processor in 64-bit mode. My impression was that it was almost as fast as kris’s benchmarks and totally kicked linux 2.6 in threading and SMP performance.

This is something I expected to see in FreeBSD 6. However FreeBSD seems to be catching up with linux again.