The pkg_* commands

How to install software

There are 2 methods to install software :

Installing pre-compiled packages is done through the command :

pkg_add -r package_name

kern.maxpipekva exceeded, please see tuning(7)

When I got this error, the root cause was something tricky : due to a power failure, the machine crashed and HDDs where not properly unmounted. Upon reboot, the system launched an automatic fsck on the disks. It's been fast on the first disk, but it lasted way longer for the other. During that time, the system had rebooted and was trying to run "normally".

In the "normal" operations handled by this machine was a Cron job, run every minute, listing the content of the 2 HDDs. Then, since one of them was still busy being fsck'd, the script never ended, and stayed in memory until it was loaded hundreds of times and running out of "pipe kva".

Switching between single user and multi-user mode

From multi-user, down to single user :

shutdown now

And back to multi-user :

exit

This can also be done through the boot options, but rebooting resets the uptime. And rebooting isn't necessary : we're not running a Windoze machine ;-)

network parameters (IP @, mask, gateway, ...)

Everything is available in /etc/rc.conf

su: Sorry

HDD naming conventions

On top of this, FreeBSD partitions also have a s1 added, then a purely conventional suffix :

So, on my system, I have :

• /dev/ad0s1a mounted at /
• /dev/ad0s1d mounted at /home
• /dev/ad1s1d mounted at /mnt/Data

... which is not very compliant to the convention :-(

How to create a new partition ?

FreeBSD organizes HDDs in slices then partitions. When installing a new HDD, the procedure is :

1. Create a new slice
2. Create one or more partitions
3. Install (or not) a Boot Manager
4. Create a new File System

All of this can be done rather easily with the sysinstall tool :

1. As root, just type sysinstall in any tty
2. Browse to the Configure | Fdisk option
3. Select the physical HDD to be edited (let's consider it's ad1) and enter Fdisk
4. Type A to use the entire HDD (or edit manually), then Q to leave this editor
5. If required, install a Boot Manager, then leave Fdisk
6. Then, enter the partition editor, called Disklabel
7. Make sure the disk label is displayed on top of the screen (for the example : ad1) and create partition like in any usual Fdisk
8. At this step, you can already specify the mount point (or you'll have to come back to this utility to set it, or manually edit /etc/fstab)
9. When finished, press W to write changes, then Q to leave.
10. Now, you just have to put tons of mp3's to fill up this new storage space ;-)

The ports tree : installing and keeping it up-to-date with CVSup

FreeBSD ports come as an easy way of installing software (from source !). To take benefits of these :

1. install the ports infrastructure during the system setup or with the sysinstall tool
2. install CVSup. This utility is designed to upgrade the ports tree only, not the ports themselves. To do so :
   cd /usr/ports/net/cvsup-without-gui && make install distclean
3. create /root/ports-supfile
4. edit it with edit ports-supfile so that it contains :
   

   *default host=cvsup.fr.freebsd.org
   *default base=/usr
   *default prefix=/usr
   *default release=cvs tag=.
   *default delete use-rel-suffix
   *default compress
   ports-all

5. and launch the tree upgrade with cvsup -g -L2 ports-supfile. This can take a while.
6. to see which ports need to be updated : pkg_version -vl "<"
7. install /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade
8. to upgrade a single port : portupgrade port_name
9. to upgrade all the ports that need it : portupgrade -a
10. For a massive upgrade of all installed ports : portupgrade -Rraf
    • R : upward-Recursive. This will upgrade packages required by the package currently being upgraded
    • r : recursive. This will upgrade packages depending on the package currently being upgraded
    • a : upgrade all installed packages
    • f : force upgrade

The ports tree : installing ports

Once the ports tree is available (make sure it's up-to-date), installing a FreeBSD port is just a matter of few steps :

1. find the directory of the port you're going to install : whereis port_name
2. launch installation : cd /usr/ports/port_type/port_name && make install distclean
3. the latest source of the port will be downloaded and compiled locally. This may take a while.

Or :

portinstall port_name

Configure the system with the sysinstall wizard

sysinstall is a utility used for the system initial setup and for post-install operations such as configuration or applications installation. It must be run as root (in tty mode), with /usr/sbin/sysinstall.

To install the ports tree after the system setup, just run sysinstall, then go to the Distribution | Ports menu.

Being a DHCP client, playing with dhclient

Notes:

• On Linux systems, Ethernet NICs are named ethn. Here, with FreeBSD, they seem to be called :
  • xln (3Com)
  • rln
  depending on the NIC manufacturer.
• dhclient only works with devices that are "UP". ("UP" and "active" is not the same for FreeBSD)

How to mount floppy, USB key, ...

• mount_msdosfs /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
• mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt/usb

How to enable the graphical login (XDM)

XDM is the X Display Manager. It's a daemon managing X sessions on the local machine. It can be launched at any time with /usr/X11R6/bin/xdm by the root user.

To start it automatically at boot time :

1. open /etc/ttys
2. seek the line starting with ttyv8
3. change the parameter off into on
4. run init q to rescan the ttys(5) file and make changes effective. (man init for details)