FreeBSD
Postinstall
Network
For a dynamic network configuration (read: DHCP), we'd use something like this in /etc/rc.conf:
hostname="len" ifconfig_bge0="DHCP" ifconfig_bge0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
If we need a static network configuration, use:
ifconfig_bge0="inet 10.0.0.3 netmask 255.255.255.0" defaultrouter=10.0.0.1 hostname=len.example.net
Restart the network configuration:
/etc/rc.d/netif restart /etc/rc.d/routing restart
Packages
Install missing packages:
pkg install bash bash-completion curl gnupg1 lsof pv rsync screen sudo vnstat
- Change a user's shell via
chsh[1] - Add
vnstat_enable="YES"in/etc/rc.conf.
Encrypted swap
This can be done with geli pretty easily:[2]
Assuming /dev/ada0p3 is the original swap device:
$ swapoff /dev/ada0p3 $ dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/ada0p3 bs=1024k # For the paranoid :->
Add .eli to the /etc/fstab entry:
/dev/ada0p3.eli none swap sw 0 0
After everything is set up, it should look like this:
$ swapinfo Device 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity /dev/ada0p3.eli 2097152 38776 2058376 2%
Note: crashdumps[3] may not be possible on encrypted swap partitions![4]
fstab
Move /tmp to volatile storage, either with mfs or tmpfs:
$ zfs destroy zroot/tmp $ grep tmpfs /etc/fstab tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=1777,size=256m 0 0 $ mount /tmp
If needed, mount procfs and Linux process and system file systems too:
$ tail -3 /etc/fstab proc /proc procfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0 linproc /compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0 linsys /compat/linux/sys linsysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
We can add swap files too,[5] with the help of md[6] devices:
doas truncate -s 256m /var/tmp/swap.img doas chmod 0600 /var/tmp/swap.img
Add to fstab:
md none swap sw,file=/var/tmp/swap.img,late 0 0
Activate all swap devices, include these with the late option set.
$ doas swapon -aL $ doas swapctl -lm Device: 1MB-blocks Used: /dev/md0 256 0
Screensaver
On this laptop I wanted to have the LCD shut off when the (text) console was idle[7][8]
$ cat /etc/rc.conf [...] apm_enable="YES" blanktime="60" saver="blank"
Enable APM[9] in device.hints[10]
$ grep apm.0.disabled /boot/device.hints hint.apm.0.disabled="0"
SMART
To enable S.M.A.R.T., use smartmontools:[11][12]
pkg install smartmontools echo 'smartd_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf cp -i /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf.sample /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf
Start smartd and
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/smartd start
The installation package should have created /usr/local/etc/periodic/daily/smart to check on monitored devices periodically.
Memory
FreeBSD memory notation is quite different, let's explain it in short:[13]
$ top -b -d 1 | grep -A3 ^Mem
Mem: 11M Active, 14M Inact, 106M Wired, 1846M Free
ARC: 43M Total, 9646K MFU, 32M MRU, 64K Anon, 672K Header, 1030K Other
22M Compressed, 73M Uncompressed, 3.36:1 Ratio
Swap: 128M Total, 128M Free
| Active | Memory currently being used by a process |
| Inactive | Memory that has been freed but is still cached since it may be used again. |
| Wired | Memory in use by the Kernel. This memory cannot be swapped out |
| Cache | Memory being used to cache data, can be freed immediately if required |
| Buffers | Disk cache |
| Free | Memory that is completely free and ready to use. |
| ARC Total | |
| MFU | |
| MRU | |
| Anon | |
| Header | |
| Other | |
| Compressed / Uncompressed | |
| Ratio |
Resize root disk
This being a virtual system, resizing (growing) the underlying disk was easy to do. But then FreeBSD needed to be coerced to use that newly available disk space too:
$ dmesg | grep vtblk vtblk0: <VirtIO Block Adapter> on virtio_pci2 vtblk0: 20480MB (41943040 512 byte sectors)
For some reason the partition status was CORRUPT:
$ gpart status vtbd0 Name Status Components vtbd0p1 CORRUPT vtbd0 vtbd0p2 CORRUPT vtbd0 vtbd0p3 CORRUPT vtbd0
Recover[14] with:
$ gpart recover vtbd0 vtbd0 recovered
Let's look at our partitions now:
$ gpart status vtbd0
Name Status Components
vtbd0p1 OK vtbd0
vtbd0p2 OK vtbd0
vtbd0p3 OK vtbd0
$ gpart show -l
=> 40 41942960 vtbd0 GPT (20G)
40 1024 1 gptboot0 (512K)
1064 984 - free - (492K)
2048 262144 2 swap0 (128M)
264192 16512984 3 zfs0 (7.9G)
16777176 25165824 - free - (12G)
We have 12 GB of unallocated space now, and want this to be added to vtbd0p3. Adding 16512984 + 25165824 gives us the final partition size:
$ gpart resize -i 3 -s 41678808 vtbd0 vtbd0p3 resized
$ gpart show -l
=> 40 41942960 vtbd0 GPT (20G)
40 1024 1 gptboot0 (512K)
1064 984 - free - (492K)
2048 262144 2 swap0 (128M)
264192 41678808 3 zfs0 (20G)
$ zpool get autoexpand zroot
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
zroot autoexpand on local
$ zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
zroot 19.8G 7.60G 12.2G - - 36% 38% 1.12x ONLINE -
Clone root disk
TBD
Update
Update package repository catalogues, then update the installed packages:
doas pkg update # Use pkg-static if needed, e.g. after a major system upgrade doas pkg upgrade
To update[15] the base system:
$ doas freebsd-update fetch Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 5 mirrors found. Fetching metadata signature for 9.3-RELEASE from update5.freebsd.org... done. Fetching metadata index... done. Inspecting system... Preparing to download files... done. [...] The following files will be added as part of updating to 9.3-RELEASE-p16: The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.3-RELEASE-p16: $ doas freebsd-update install Installing updates....done.
Upgrade
To upgrade[16] to another release, use:
$ uname -r 11.0-RELEASE $ freebsd-update -r 12.0-RELEASE upgrade Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 5 mirrors found. Fetching metadata signature for 11.0-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done. Fetching metadata index... done. Inspecting system... done. [...] Fetching metadata signature for 12.0-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done. Fetching metadata index... done. Fetching 1 metadata patches. done. Applying metadata patches... done. Fetching 1 metadata files... done. Inspecting system... Fetching files from 11.0-RELEASE for merging... done. Preparing to download files... To install the downloaded upgrades, run "/usr/sbin/freebsd-update install". $ freebsd-update install Installing updates... Kernel updates have been installed. Please reboot and run "/usr/sbin/freebsd-update install" again to finish installing updates.
Reboot, then continue with:
$ freebsd-update install Installing updates... done.
Now the updated kernel should be bootable and the upgrade should now be completed.
If all is well, and no freebsd-update rollback is required, /var/db/freebsd-update/files can be emptied:[17][18]
$ du -sh /var/db/freebsd-update/files; find /var/db/freebsd-update/files | wc -l 781M /var/db/freebsd-update/files 29428 $ find /var/db/freebsd-update/files/ -type f -mtime +30 -ls -delete
If needed, update userland tools:
pkg update # Use pkg-static if needed, e.g. after a major system upgrade pkg upgrade
Building
Since 2020, FreeBSD switched to Git as their version control system:[19]
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src/
git switch origin/release/12.0.0
Let's not build as root but as a different user:
pw group add -n wsrc -M root,dummy chgrp wsrc /usr/obj/ chmod g+w /usr/obj/
Configuration
Consult both make.conf and src.conf to adjust some build options. For example:
$ cat /etc/make.conf NO_KERNELCLEAN=true
$ cat /etc/src.conf WITHOUT_AUTOFS=1 WITHOUT_CLEAN=1 WITHOUT_IPSEC_SUPPORT=1 WITHOUT_KERNEL_SYMBOLS=1 WITHOUT_WIRELESS_SUPPORT=1
Kernel
While explained in the handbook, here's the short version.[20]
cd /usr/src/ export MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX=/usr/obj # Adjust as needed, if needed at all. export LD=ld.lld # A newer linker may be needed for now.[21] export JOBS=$(/sbin/sysctl -n hw.ncpu) make -j${JOBS} buildkernel KERNCONF=$(uname -i) doas make installkernel KERNCONF=$(uname -i) # sudo or doas needed
If we were to create a different configuration:
cd /usr/src/sys/$(uname -m)/conf/ cp GENERIC MYCONF
Edit MYCONF as needed and set KERNCONF=MYCONF and build as shown above.
Reboot - and if all goes well, our new kernel should be running.
The running kernel configuration can be displayed with sysctl kern.conftxt or config -x /boot/kernel/kernel.
Userland
If needed, we can build the whole system from source. Assuming we have a current source tree, here's the short version:
cd /usr/src export MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX=/usr/obj # Adjust as needed, if needed at all. export JOBS=$(/sbin/sysctl -n hw.ncpu) unset LD # No LD override is needed here![22] make -j${JOBS} buildworld export LD=ld.lld # A newer linker may be needed for now.[21] make -j${JOBS} buildkernel doas make installkernel # sudo or doas needed
Boot into the new kernel, and if the system comes back online, install world:
cd /usr/src doas make installworld # sudo or doas needed
Update configuration files with mergemaster
doas mergemaster
Reboot again into the updated system.
Ports
Again, the handbook has this topic pretty much covered. Let's only show some examples here:
Fetch and extract a current port snapshot into /usr/ports:
portsnap fetch portsnap extract
Or, when updating an already existing /usr/ports tree:
portsnap fetch portsnap update
We can also use Git to checkout the ports tree:
git clone https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports.git /usr/ports # SVN variant: svn checkout https://svn.FreeBSD.org/ports/head /usr/ports # svn update /usr/ports
Install a port:
$ cd /usr/ports/*/cowsay && pwd /usr/ports/games/cowsay $ make install
Uninstall with:
$ make deinstall
Links
References
- ↑ chpass(1)
- ↑ 18.13. Encrypting Swap
- ↑ Kernel Debugging
- ↑ Crash dumps and encrypted swap
- ↑ Chapter 14. Configuration, Services, Logging and Power Management
- ↑ md(4)
- ↑ green_saver does not switch DVI monitor power off
- ↑ Should green_saver.ko shut off a laptop's backlight?
- ↑ FreeBSD on Laptops: APM
- ↑ 13.4. Device Hints
- ↑ smartmontools
- ↑ Monitoring your HDD using SMART and Nagios
- ↑ What do the different memory counters in FreeBSD mean?
- ↑ gpart(8) - control utility for the disk partitioning GEOM class
- ↑ Applying Security Patches
- ↑ Performing Major and Minor Version Upgrades
- ↑ can /var/db/freebsd-update/ be safely deleted?
- ↑ Is it safe to clean /var/db/freebsd-update/files ?
- ↑ Appendix A. Obtaining FreeBSD: Using Git
- ↑ How To Customize and Recompile Your Kernel on FreeBSD 10.1
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Can't build kernel anymore: amd64 kernel requires linker ifunc support
- ↑ Buildowrld tries to use old ld, and fails