FreeBSD

Update

Update package repository catalogues, then update the installed packages:

pkg update                                                                                     # Use pkg-static if needed, e.g. after a major system upgrade
pkg upgrade

To update the base system:

$ 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:

$ freebsd-update install
Installing updates....done.

Upgrade

To upgrade 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.

Note: since the kernel has already been updated, we may have to boot the old (9.3-RELEASE) kernel and continue with:

$ freebsd-update install
Installing updates...
Completing this upgrade requires removing old shared object files.
Please rebuild all installed 3rd party software (e.g., programs
installed from the ports tree) and then run "/usr/sbin/freebsd-update install"
again to finish installing updates.

Update userland tools:

pkg update                                                                                     # Use pkg-static if needed, e.g. after a major system upgrade
pkg upgrade

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:

$ 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

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
• Add vnstat_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf.

Encrypted swap

This can be done with geli pretty easily:

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 may not be possible on encrypted swap partitions!

Screensaver

On this laptop I wanted to have the LCD shut off when the (text) console was idle

$ cat /etc/rc.conf
[...]
apm_enable="YES"
blanktime="60"
saver="blank"

Enable APM in device.hints

$ grep apm.0.disabled /boot/device.hints 
hint.apm.0.disabled="0"

SMART

To enable S.M.A.R.T., use smartmontools:

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:

$ top -b -d 1 | grep -A1 ^Mem
Mem: 112M Active, 687M Inact, 158M Wired, 8268K Cache, 87M Buf, 12M Free
Swap: 1024M Total, 41M Used, 983M Free, 3% Inuse

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.

Building

Check out the source and pick a release:

git clone https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd.git /usr/src                                    # Needs to be writable, of course.
git checkout -b local_12 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/

Kernel

While explained in the handbook, here's the short version.

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.
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 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!
make -j$JOBS buildworld

export LD=ld.lld                                                                               # A newer linker may be needed for now.
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 -Ui

Reboot again into the updated system.

Links

• FreeBSD Wiki
• Wiki BSDForen.de
• A FreeBSD 11 Desktop How-to