Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 2.X <author>Please send submissions to <tt><htmlurl url='mailto:faq@freebsd.org' name='<faq@freebsd.org>'></tt> <date>$Date: 1997-10-12 21:19:05 $</date> <abstract> This is the FAQ for FreeBSD systems version 2.X All entries are assumed to be relevant to FreeBSD 2.0.5 and later, unless otherwise noted. Any entries with a <XXX> are under construction. </abstract> <toc> <sect> <heading>Preface</heading> Welcome to the FreeBSD 2.X FAQ! <sect1> <heading>What is the purpose of this FAQ?</heading> As is usual with Usenet FAQs, this document aims to cover the most frequently asked questions concerning the FreeBSD operating system (and of course answer them!). Although originally intended to reduce bandwidth and avoid the same old questions being asked over and over again, FAQs have become recognized as valuable information resources. Every effort has been made to make this FAQ as informative as possible; if you have any suggestions as to how it may be improved, please feel free to mail them to the <url url="mailto:pds@FreeBSD.ORG" name="FAQ maintainer">. <sect1> <heading>What is FreeBSD?</heading> Briefly, FreeBSD 2.X is a UN*X-like operating system based on U.C. Berkeley's 4.4BSD-lite release for the i386 platform. It is also based indirectly on William Jolitz's port of U.C. Berkeley's Net/2 to the i386, known as 386BSD, though very little of the 386BSD code remains. A fuller description of what FreeBSD is and how it can work for you may be found on the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org" name="FreeBSD home page">. FreeBSD is used by companies, Internet Service Providers, researchers, computer professionals, students and home users all over the world in their work, education and recreation. See some of them in the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/gallery.html" name="FreeBSD Gallery."> For more detailed information on FreeBSD, please see the <url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="FreeBSD Handbook."> <sect1> <heading>What are the goals of FreeBSD?</heading> 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 renumeration now and then, but we're 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, we 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 Public License (GPL) or GNU Library Public License (GLPL) 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, endeavor to replace such software with submissions under the more relaxed BSD copyright whenever possible. <sect1> <heading>Why is it called FreeBSD?</heading> <itemize> <item>It may be used free of charge, even by commercial users. <item>Full source for the operating system is freely available, and the minimum possible restrictions have been placed upon its use, distribution and incorporation into other work (commercial or non-commercial). <item>Anyone who has an improvement and/or bug fix is free to submit their code and have it added to the source tree (subject to one or two obvious provisos). </itemize> For those of our readers whose first language is not English, it may be worth pointing out that the word ``free'' is being used in two ways here, one meaning ``at no cost'', the other meaning ``you can do whatever you like''. Apart from one or two things you <tt /cannot/ do with the FreeBSD code, for example pretending you wrote it, you really can do whatever you like with it. <sect1> <heading>What is the latest version of FreeBSD?</heading> Version <url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.1.7.1-RELEASE" name="2.1.7.1"> is the latest stable version; it was released in February, 1997. Version <url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2.2-RELEASE" name="2.2.2"> is the latest release version; it was released in March, 1997. Briefly explained, <bf>-stable</bf> is aimed at the ISP or other corporate user who wants stability and a low change count over the wizzy new features of the latest release (which is <bf>2.2.2</bf>). This is not to say that 2.2.2 is unusable for business services, and many people who need some 2.2 specific feature (newer compiler technology, faster networking code, etc) have decided to take a chance with it with very good results. We simply do not wish to "certify" 2.2 as mission-worthy until it's run another release or two down its branch and been better shaken-out. <sect1> <heading>What is FreeBSD-current?<label id="current"></heading> <url url="../handbook/current.html" name="FreeBSD-current"> is the development version of the operating system, which will in due course become 3.0-RELEASE. As such, it is really only of interest to developers working on the system and die-hard hobbiests. See the <url url="../handbook/current.html" name="relevant section"> in the <url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="handbook"> for details on running -current. Every now and again, a <url url="../releases/snapshots.html" name="snapshot"> release is also made of this -current development code, CDROM distributions of the occasional snapshot even now being made available. The goals behind each snapshot release are: <itemize> <item>To test the latest version of the installation software. <item>To give people who would like to run -current but who don't have the time and/or bandwidth to follow it on a day-to-day basis an easy way of bootstrapping it onto their systems. <item>To preserve a fixed reference point for the code in question, just in case we break something really badly later. :) <item>To ensure that any new features in need of testing have the greatest possible number of potential testers. </itemize> No claims are made that any snapshot can be considered ``production quality'' for any purpose. For stability and tested mettle, you will have to stick to full releases. Snapshot releases are directly available from <url url="ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/"> and are generated, on the average, once a day for both the 3.0-current and 2.2-stable branches. <sect1> <heading> What is the FreeBSD-stable concept?</heading> Back when FreeBSD 2.0.5 was released, we decided to branch FreeBSD development into two parts. One branch was named <url url="../handbook/stable.html" name="-stable">, with the intention that only well-tested bug fixes and small incremental enhancements would be made to it (for Internet Service Providers and other commercial enterprises for whom sudden shifts or experimental features are quite undesirable). The other branch was 3.0-current, which essentially has been one unbroken line leading towards 3.0-RELEASE (and beyond) since 2.0 was released. If a little ASCII art would help, this is how it looks: <verb> 2.0 | | | [2.1-stable] *BRANCH* 2.0.5 -> 2.1 -> 2.1.5 -> 2.1.6 -> 2.1.7.1 [2.1-stable ends] | (Mar 1997) | | | [2.2-stable] *BRANCH* 2.2.1 -> 2.2.2-RELEASE -> 2.2.5-RELEASE -> ... | (Mar 1997) (Nov 1997) | | 3.0-SNAPs (started Q1 1997) | | 3.0.0-RELEASE (Q1 1998) | \|/ + [future 3.x releases] </verb> The -current branch is slowly progressing towards 3.0 and beyond, whereas the existing 2.1-stable branch was superseded by the release of 2.2.0, the "stability branch" resurrecting itself as 2.2-stable. 3.0-current will continue to be where the active development takes place, up until the actual release of 3.0. At that point, 3.0 will become yet another branch and 3.1-current will become the next "current branch". <sect1> <heading>Why is the 2.1-stable branch ending with 2.1.7.1? </heading> While we'd certainly like to be able to continue 3 branches of development, we've found that the version control tools available to us are not particularly well-suited for this; in fact, they quickly result in a maintenance nightmare for any branch which lives much beyond 2-3 months. The 2.1-stable branch has, by contrast, lasted for well over a year and what little sanity the FreeBSD developers have left would be in serious jeopardy if we continued in this way. Perhaps in the future we'll figure out another model which gives everyone what they want, and we are working on such a model, but in the meantime it's probably best to think of -stable coming to an end with <url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/pub/2.1.7.1-RELEASE" name="2.1.7.1-RELEASE"> (the final point release after 2.1.7). <sect1> <heading> When are FreeBSD releases made?</heading> As a general principle, the FreeBSD core team only release a new version of FreeBSD when they believe that there are sufficient new features and/or bug fixes to justify one, and are satisfied that the changes made have settled down sufficiently to avoid compromising the stability of the release. Many users regard this caution as one of the best things about FreeBSD, although it can be a little frustrating when waiting for all the latest goodies to become available... Releases are made about every 6 months on average. For people needing (or wanting) a little more excitement, there are SNAPs released more frequently, particularly during the month or so leading up to a release. <sect1> <heading> Is FreeBSD only available for PCs?</heading> At present, yes, though a port to the DEC Alpha architecture is planned. If your machine has a different architecture and you need something right now, we suggest you look at <url url="http://www.netbsd.org/" name="NetBSD"> or <url url="http://www.openbsd.org/" name="OpenBSD">. <sect1> <heading> Who is responsible for FreeBSD?</heading> The key decisions concerning the FreeBSD project, such as the overall direction of the project and who is allowed to add code to the source tree, are made by a <url url="../handbook/staff:core.html" name="core team"> of some 17 people. There is a much larger team of around 70+ <url url="../handbook/staff:committers.html" name="committers"> who are authorized to make changes directly to the FreeBSD source tree. However, most non-trivial changes are discussed in advance in the <ref id="mailing" name="mailing lists">, and there are no restrictions on who may take part in the discussion. <sect1> <heading>Where can I get FreeBSD?<label id="where-get"></heading> Every significant release of FreeBSD is available via anonymous ftp from the <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/" name="FreeBSD FTP site">: <itemize> <item> For the current 2.1-stable release, 2.1.7.1R, see the <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/2.1.7.1-RELEASE/" name="2.1.7.1-RELEASE"> directory. <item> For the current 2.2-stable release, 2.2.2R, see the <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/2.2.2-RELEASE/" name="2.2.2-RELEASE"> directory. <item> <url url="ftp://releng22.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/" name="2.2 Snapshot"> releases are made once a day along the RELENG_2_2 branch (2.2.2 -> 2.2.x) as it winds its way towards the next point release on the 2.2 branch, 2.2.5. With the occasional exception of accidental breakage, the RELENG_2_2 branch is being carefully maintained (no experimental changes, fixes made only after testing in -current). <item> <url url="ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/" name="3.0 Snapshot"> releases are also made once a day for the <ref id="current" name="-current"> branch, these being of service purely to bleeding-edge testers and developers. </itemize> FreeBSD is also available via CDROM, from the following place(s): Walnut Creek CDROM<newline> 4041 Pike Lane, Suite D-386<newline> Concord, CA 94520 USA<newline> Orders: (800)-786-9907<newline> Questions: (510)-674-0783<newline> FAX: (510)-674-0821<newline> email: <url url="mailto:orders@cdrom.com" name="WC Orders address"> <newline> WWW: <url url="http://www.cdrom.com/" name="WC Home page"><newline> In Australia, you may find it at: Advanced Multimedia Distributors<newline> Factory 1/1 Ovata Drive<newline> Tullamarine, Melbourne<newline> Victoria<newline> Australia<newline> Voice: +61 3 9338 6777<newline> CDROM Support BBS<newline> 17 Irvine St<newline> Peppermint Grove WA 6011<newline> Voice: +61 9 385-3793<newline> Fax: +61 9 385-2360<newline> And in the UK: The Public Domain & Shareware Library<newline> Winscombe House, Beacon Rd<newline> Crowborough<newline> Sussex. TN6 1UL<newline> Voice: +44 01892 663298<newline> Fax: +44 01892 667473<newline> (Do not dial the leading zero if calling from outside the UK). <sect1> <heading>Where do I find info on the FreeBSD mailing lists?<label id="mailing"></heading> You can find full information in the <url url="../handbook/eresources:mail.html" name="Handbook entry on mailing-lists."> <sect1> <heading>What FreeBSD news groups are available?</heading> You can find full information in the <url url="../handbook/eresources:news.html" name="Handbook entry on newsgroups."> <sect1> <heading>Is there anything about FreeBSD on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) ?</heading> There are two channels about FreeBSD on IRC: <enum> <item>The main channel is #FreeBSD on the EFNET. You can use your regular IRC server for it. <item>You can point your IRC client to <tt/irc.FreeBSD.org/ This server is on BSDnet and hosts #FreeBSD. This is not the same channel. </enum> <sect1> <heading>Books on FreeBSD</heading> Greg Lehey's book ``Installing and Running FreeBSD'' is available from Walnut Creek and ships with the 2.1.7 CDROM. There is also a larger book entitled ``The Complete FreeBSD'', which comes with additional printed manpages amd includes the 2.1.7 CDROM set. It should be available in most good book shops now. There is a FreeBSD Documentation Project which you may contact (or even better, join) on the <tt>doc</tt> mailing list: <url url="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.ORG" name="<doc@FreeBSD.ORG>">. A FreeBSD ``handbook'' is available, and can be found as: <url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="the FreeBSD Handbook">. Note that this is a work in progress, and so parts may be incomplete. However, as FreeBSD 2.X is based upon Berkeley 4.4BSD-Lite, most of the 4.4BSD manuals are applicable to FreeBSD 2.X. O'Reilly and Associates publishes these manuals: 4.4BSD System Manager's Manual <newline> By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley <newline> 1st Edition June 1994, 804 pages <newline> ISBN: 1-56592-080-5 <NEWLINE> 4.4BSD User's Reference Manual <newline> By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley <newline> 1st Edition June 1994, 905 pages <newline> ISBN: 1-56592-075-9 <NEWLINE> 4.4BSD User's Supplementary Documents <newline> By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley <newline> 1st Edition July 1994, 712 pages <newline> ISBN: 1-56592-076-7 <NEWLINE> 4.4BSD Programmer's Reference Manual <newline> By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley <newline> 1st Edition June 1994, 886 pages <newline> ISBN: 1-56592-078-3 <NEWLINE> 4.4BSD Programmer's Supplementary Documents <newline> By Computer Systems Research Group, UC Berkeley <newline> 1st Edition July 1994, 596 pages <newline> ISBN: 1-56592-079-1 <NEWLINE> A description of these can be found via WWW as: <url url="http://gnn.com/gnn/bus/ora/category/bsd.html" name="4.4BSD books description"> For a more in-depth look at the 4.4BSD kernel organization, you can't go wrong with: McKusick, Marshall Kirk, Keith Bostic, Michael J Karels, and John Quarterman.<newline> The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System. Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996.<newline> ISBN 0-201-54979-4<newline> A good book on system administration is: Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass & Trent R. Hein,<newline> ``Unix System Administration Handbook'', Prentice-Hall, 1995<newline> ISBN: 0-13-151051-7<newline> <bf/NOTE/ make sure you get the second edition, with a red cover, instead of the first edition. This book covers the basics, as well as TCP/IP, DNS, NFS, SLIP/PPP, sendmail, INN/NNTP, printing, etc.. It's expensive (approx. US$45-$55), but worth it. It also includes a CDROM with the sources for various tools; most of these, however, are also on the FreeBSD 2.1.7R CDROM (and the FreeBSD CDROM often has newer versions). <sect1> <heading>How do I access your Problem Report database?</heading> The Problem Report database of all open user change requests may be queried (or submitted to) by using our web-based PR <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html" name="submission"> and <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-summary.cgi" name="query"> interfaces. The send-pr(1) command can also be used to submit change requests via electronic mail. <sect1> <heading>Other sources of information.</heading> The following newsgroups contain pertinent discussion for FreeBSD users: <itemize> <item><url url="comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce" name="comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce"> <item><url url="comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc" name="comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc"> <item><url url="comp.unix.bsd.misc" name="comp.unix.bsd.misc"> </itemize> Web resources: <itemize> <item> The <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/" name="FreeBSD Home Page">. <item> <label id="pao">If you have a laptop, be sure and see <url url="http://www.jp.FreeBSD.org/PAO/" name="Tatsumi Hosokawa's Mobile Computing page"> in Japan. <item> <label id="smp">For information on SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing), please see the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/~fsmp/SMP/SMP.html" name="SMP support page">. <item> <label id="multimedia">For information on FreeBSD multimedia applications, please see the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/~faulkner/multimedia/mm.html" name="multimedia">page. If you're interested specifically in the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/~ahasty/Bt848.html" name="Bt848"> video capture chip, then follow that link. </itemize> The FreeBSD handbook also has a fairly complete <url url="../handbook/bibliography.html" name="bibliography"> section which is worth reading if you're looking for actual books to buy. <sect> <heading>Installation</heading> <sect1> <heading>Which file do I download to get FreeBSD?</heading> You generally need just one floppy image, the floppies/boot.flp file, which you image-copy onto a 1.44MB floppy and then boot it in order to download the rest (and the installation will manage your TCP/IP collection, deal with tapes, CDROMs, floppies, DOS partitions, whatever's necessary to get the reset of the bits installed). Full instructions on this procedure and a little bit more about installation issues in general can be found in the <url url="../handbook/install.html" name="Handbook entry on installing FreeBSD."> <sect1> <heading>Where are the instructions for installing FreeBSD?</heading> Installation instructions can be found in the <url url="../handbook/install.html" name="Handbook entry on installing FreeBSD."> <sect1> <heading>What do I need in order to run FreeBSD?</heading> You'll need a 386 or better PC, with 5 MB or more of RAM and at least 60 MB of hard disk space. It can run with a low end MDA card but to run X11R6, a VGA or better video card is needed. See also the section on <ref id="hardware" name="Hardware compatibility"> <sect1> <heading>I have only 4 MB of RAM. Can I install FreeBSD?</heading> FreeBSD 2.1.7 was the last version of FreeBSD that could be installed on a 4MB system. Newer versions of FreeBSD, like 2.2, need at least 5MB to install on a new system. All versions of FreeBSD, including 2.2, will RUN in 4MB of ram, they just can't run the installation program in 4MB. You can add extra memory for the install process, if you like, and then after the system is up and running, go back to 4MB. Or you could always just swap your disk into a system which has >4MB, install onto it and then swap it back. There are also situations in which FreeBSD 2.1.7 will not install in 4 MB. To be exact: it does not install with 640 kB base + 3 MB extended memory. If your motherboard can remap some of the ``lost'' memory out of the 640kB to 1MB region, then you may still be able to get FreeBSD 2.1.7 up. Try to go into your BIOS setup and look for a ``remap'' option. Enable it. You may also have to disable ROM shadowing. It may be easier to get 4 more MB just for the install. Build a custom kernel with only the options you need and then get the 4 MB out again. You may also install 2.0.5 and then upgrade your system to 2.1.7 with the ``upgrade'' option of the 2.1.7 installation program. After the installation, if you build a custom kernel, it will run in 4 MB. Someone has even succeeded in booting with 2 MB (the system was almost unusable though :-)) <sect1> <heading>I've got some other special requirements, can I make my own custom install floppy?</heading> Currently there's no way to *just* make a custom install floppy. You have to cut a whole new release, which will include your install floppy. There's some code in <TT>/usr/src/release/floppies/Makefile</TT> that's supposed to let you *just* make those floppies, but it's not really gelled yet. To make a custom release, follow the instructions <ref id="custrel" name="here">. <sect1> <heading>How can I have more than one operating system on my PC?</heading> Have a look at <url url="http://www.in.net/~jayrich/doc/multios.html" name="The multi-OS page."> <sect1> <heading>Can Windows 95 co-exist with FreeBSD?</heading> Install Windows 95 first, after that FreeBSD. FreeBSD's boot manager will then manage to boot Win95 and FreeBSD. If you install Windows 95 second, it will boorishly overwrite your boot manager without even asking. If that happens, see the next section. <sect1> <heading>Windows 95 killed my boot manager! How do I get it back?</heading> You can reinstall the boot manager FreeBSD comes with in one of two ways: <itemize> <item>Running DOS, go into the tools/ directory of your FreeBSD distribution and look for <bf>bootinst.exe</bf>. You run it like so: <bf>bootinst.exe boot.bin</bf> And the boot manager will be reinstalled. <item>Boot the FreeBSD boot floppy again and go to the Custom installation menu item. Choose Partition. Select the drive which used to contain your boot manager (likely the first one) and when you come to the partition editor for it, as the very first thing (e.g. do not make any changes) select (W)rite. This will ask for confirmation, say yes, and when you get the Boot Manager selection prompt, be sure to select "Boot Manager." This will re-write the boot manager to disk. Now quit out of the installation menu and reboot off the hard disk as normal. </itemize> <sect1> <heading>Can I install on a disk with bad blocks?</heading> FreeBSD's bad block (the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?bad144" name="bad144"> command) handling is still not 100% (to put it charitably) and it must unfortunately be said that if you've got an IDE or ESDI drive with lots of bad blocks, then FreeBSD is probably not for you! That said, it does work on thousands of IDE based systems, so you'd do well to try it first before simply giving up. If you have a SCSI drive with bad blocks, see <ref id="awre" name="this answer">. <sect1> <heading>Strange things happen when I boot the install floppy!</heading> If you're seeing things like the machine grinding to a halt or spontaneously rebooting when you try to boot the install floppy, here are three questions to ask yourself:- <enum> <item>Did you use a new, freshly-formatted, error-free floppy (preferably a brand-new one straight out of the box, as opposed to the magazine coverdisk that's been lying under the bed for the last three years)? <item>Did you download the floppy image in binary (or image) mode? (don't be embarrassed, even the best of us have made this mistake at least once when FTP'ing things!) shell in the GUI can cause this problem. </enum> There have also been reports of Netscape causing problems when downloading the boot floppy, so it's probably best to use a different FTP client if you can. <sect1> <heading>Help! I can't install from tape!</heading> If you are installing 2.1.7R from tape, you must create the tape using a tar blocksize of 10 (5120 bytes). The default tar blocksize is 20 (10240 bytes), and tapes created using this default size cannot be used to install 2.1.7R; with these tapes, you will get an error that complains about the record size being too big. <sect1> <heading>Can I install on my laptop over PLIP (Parallel Line IP)?</heading> Connect the two computers using a Laplink parallel cable to use this feature: <verb> +----------------------------------------+ |A-name A-End B-End Descr. Port/Bit | +----------------------------------------+ |DATA0 2 15 Data 0/0x01 | |-ERROR 15 2 1/0x08 | +----------------------------------------+ |DATA1 3 13 Data 0/0x02 | |+SLCT 13 3 1/0x10 | +----------------------------------------+ |DATA2 4 12 Data 0/0x04 | |+PE 12 4 1/0x20 | +----------------------------------------+ |DATA3 5 10 Strobe 0/0x08 | |-ACK 10 5 1/0x40 | +----------------------------------------+ |DATA4 6 11 Data 0/0x10 | |BUSY 11 6 1/0x80 | +----------------------------------------+ |GND 18-25 18-25 GND - | +----------------------------------------+ </verb> See also <ref id="pao" name="this note"> on the Mobile Computing page. <sect1> <heading>Which geometry should I use for a disk drive?<label id="geometry"></heading> (By the "geometry" of a disk, we mean the number of cylinders, heads and sectors/track on a disk - I'll refer to this as C/H/S for convenience. This is how the PC's BIOS works out which area on a disk to read/write from). This seems to cause a lot of confusion for some reason. First of all, the <tt /physical/ geometry of a SCSI drive is totally irrelevant, as FreeBSD works in term of disk blocks. In fact, there is no such thing as "the" physical geometry, as the sector density varies across the disk - what manufacturers claim is the "true" physical geometry is usually the geometry that they've worked out results in the least wasted space. For IDE disks, FreeBSD does work in terms of C/H/S, but all modern drives will convert this into block references internally as well. All that matters is the <tt /logical/ geometry - the answer that the BIOS gets when it asks "what is your geometry" and then uses to access the disk. As FreeBSD uses the BIOS when booting, it's very important to get this right. In particular, if you have more than one operating system on a disk, they must all agree on the geometry, otherwise you will have serious problems booting! For SCSI disks, the geometry to use depends on whether extended translation support is turned on in your controller (this is often referred to as "support for DOS disks >1GB" or something similar). If it's turned off, then use N cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track, where 'N' is the capacity of the disk in MB. For example, a 2GB disk should pretend to have 2048 cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track. If it <tt /is/ turned on (it's often supplied this way to get around certain limitations in MSDOS) and the disk capacity is more than 1GB, use M cylinders, 63 heads (*not* 64), and 255 sectors per track, where 'M' is the disk capacity in MB divided by 7.844238 (!). So our example 2GB drive would have 261 cylinders, 63 heads and 255 sectors per track. If you are not sure about this, or FreeBSD fails to detect the geometry correctly during installation, the simplest way around this is usually to create a small DOS partition on the disk. The correct geometry should then be detected (and you can always remove the DOS partition in the partition editor if you don't want to keep it, or leave it around for programming network cards and the like). Alternatively, there is a freely available utility distributed with FreeBSD called ``<tt/pfdisk.exe/'' (located in the <tt>tools</tt> subdirectory on the FreeBSD CDROM or on the various FreeBSD ftp sites) which can be used to work out what geometry the other operating systems on the disk are using. You can then enter this geometry in the partition editor. <sect1> <heading>Any restrictions on how I divide the disk up?</heading> Yes. You must make sure that your root partition is below 1024 cylinders so the BIOS can boot the kernel from it. (Note that this is a limitation in the PC's BIOS, not FreeBSD). For a SCSI drive, this will normally imply that the root partition will be in the first 1024MB (or in the first 4096MB if extended translation is turned on - see previous question). For IDE, the corresponding figure is 504MB. <sect1><heading>What about disk managers? My BIOS doesn't support large drives!</heading> FreeBSD recognizes the Ontrack Disk Manager and makes allowances for it. Other disk managers are not supported. If you just want to use the disk with FreeBSD you don't need a disk manager. Just configure the disk for as much space as the BIOS can deal with (usually 504 megabytes), and FreeBSD should figure out how much space you really have. If you're using an old disk with an MFM controller, you may need to explicitly tell FreeBSD how many cylinders to use. If you want to use the disk with FreeBSD and another operating system, you may be able to do without a disk manager: just make sure the the FreeBSD boot partition and the slice for the other operating system are in the first 1024 cylinders. If you're reasonably careful, a 20 megabyte boot partition should be plenty. <sect1> <heading>When I boot FreeBSD I get ``Missing Operating System''<label id="missing_os"></heading> This is classically a case of FreeBSD and DOS or some other OS conflicting over their ideas of disk <ref id="geometry" name="geometry."> You will have to reinstall FreeBSD, but obeying the instructions given above will almost always get you going. <sect1> <heading>I can't get past the boot manager's `F?' prompt.</heading> This is another symptom of the problem described in the preceding question. Your BIOS geometry and FreeBSD geometry settings do not agree! If your controller or BIOS supports cylinder translation (often marked as ``>1GB drive support''), try toggling its setting and reinstalling FreeBSD. <sect1> <heading>I have >16MB of RAM. Will this cause any problems?<label id="bigram"></heading> Apart from performance issues, no. FreeBSD 2.X comes with bounce buffers which allow your bus mastering controller access to greater than 16MB. (Note that this should only be required if you are using ISA devices, although one or two broken EISA and VLB devices may need it as well). Also look at the section on <ref id="reallybigram" name=">64M machines"> if you have that much memory, or if you're using a Compaq or other BIOS that lies about the available memory. <sect1> <heading>Do I need to install the complete sources?</heading> In general, no. However, we would strongly recommend that you install, at a minimum, the ``<tt/base/'' source kit, which includes several of the files mentioned here, and the ``<tt/sys/'' (kernel) source kit, which includes sources for the kernel. There is nothing in the system which requires the presence of the sources to operate, however, except for the kernel-configuration program <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?config" name="config">. With the exception of the kernel sources, our build structure is set up so that you can read-only mount the sources from elsewhere via NFS and still be able to make new binaries. (Because of the kernel-source restriction, we recommend that you not mount this on <tt>/usr/src</tt> directly, but rather in some other location with appropriate symbolic links to duplicate the top-level structure of the source tree.) Having the sources on-line and knowing how to build a system with them will make it much easier for you to upgrade to future releases of FreeBSD. To actually select a subset of the sources, use the Custom menu item when you are in the Distributions menu of the system installation tool. The <tt>src/install.sh</tt> script will also install partial pieces of the source distribution, depending on the arguments you pass it. <sect1> <heading>Do I need to build a kernel?</heading> Building a new kernel was originally pretty much a required step in a FreeBSD installation, but more recent releases have benefited from the introduction of a much friendlier kernel configuration tool. When at the FreeBSD boot prompt (boot:), use the "-c" flag and you will be dropped into a visual configuration screen which allows you to configure the kernel's settings for most common ISA cards. It's still recommended that you eventually build a new kernel containing just the drivers that you need, just to save a bit of RAM, but it's no longer a strict requirement for most systems. <sect1> <heading>I live outside the US. Can I use DES encryption?</heading> If it is not absolutely imperative that you use DES style encryption, you can use FreeBSD's default encryption for even <bf/better/ security, and with no export restrictions. FreeBSD 2.0's password default scrambler is now <bf/MD5/-based, and is more CPU-intensive to crack with an automated password cracker than DES, and allows longer passwords as well. The only reason for not using the <bf/MD5/-based crypt today would be to use the the same password entries on FreeBSD and non-FreeBSD systems. Since the DES encryption algorithm cannot legally be exported from the US, non-US users should not download this software (as part of the <tt/secrdist/ from US FTP sites. There is however a replacement libcrypt available, based on sources written in Australia by David Burren. This code is now available on some non-US FreeBSD mirror sites. Sources for the unencumbered libcrypt, and binaries of the programs which use it, can be obtained from the following FTP sites: <descrip> <tag/South Africa/ <tt>ftp://ftp.internat.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD</tt><newline> <tt>ftp://storm.sea.uct.ac.za/pub/FreeBSD</tt> <tag/Brazil/ <tt>ftp://ftp.iqm.unicamp.br/pub/FreeBSD</tt> <tag/Finland/ <tt>ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/unix/FreeBSD/eurocrypt</tt> </descrip> The non-US <tt/securedist/ can be used as a direct replacement for the encumbered US <tt/securedist/. This <tt/securedist/ package is installed the same way as the US package (see installation notes for details). If you are going to install DES encryption, you should do so as soon as possible, before installing other software. Non-US users should please not download any encryption software from the USA. This can get the maintainers of the sites from which the software is downloaded into severe legal difficulties. A non-US distribution of Kerberos is also being developed, and current versions can generally be obtained by anonymous FTP from <tt>braae.ru.ac.za</tt>. There is also a <ref id="mailing" name="mailing list"> for the discussion of non-US encryption software. For more information, send an email message with a single line saying ``<tt/help/'' in the body of your message to <tt><majordomo@braae.ru.ac.za></tt>. </sect1> </sect> <sect> <heading>Hardware compatibility <label id="hardware"></heading> <sect1> <heading>What kind of hard drives does FreeBSD support?</heading> FreeBSD supports EIDE and SCSI drives (with a compatible controller: see the next section), and all drives using the original "Western Digital" interface (MFM, RLL, ESDI, and of course IDE). A few ESDI controllers that use proprietary interfaces may not work: stick to WD1002/3/6/7 interfaces and clones. <sect1> <heading>Which SCSI controllers are supported?</heading> FreeBSD supports the following SCSI controllers: <descrip> <tag/Adaptec/ AH-1505 <ISA> <newline> AH-152x Series <ISA> <newline> AH-154x Series <ISA> <newline> AH-174x Series <EISA> <newline> Sound Blaster SCSI (AH-152x compat) <ISA> <newline> AH-2742/2842 Series <ISA/EISA> <newline> AH-2820/2822/2825 Series (Narrow/Twin/Wide) <VLB> <newline> AH-294x and aic7870 MB controllers (Narrow/Twin/Wide) <PCI><newline> AH-394x (Narrow/Twin/Wide) <tag/Buslogic/ BT-445 Series <VLB> (this is one of the cards referred to in the section <ref id="bigram" name="on >16 MB machines">) <newline> BT-545 Series <ISA> <newline> BT-742 Series <EISA><newline> BT-747 Series <EISA><newline> BT-946 Series <PCI> <newline> BT-956 Series <PCI> <newline> <tag/Future Domain/ TMC-950 Series <ISA> <newline> <tag/PCI Generic/ NCR 53C81x based controllers <PCI> <newline> NCR 53C82x based controllers <PCI> <newline> NCR 53C860/75 based controllers <PCI> <newline> <tag/ProAudioSpectrum/ Zilog 5380 based controllers <ISA> <newline> Trantor 130 based controllers <ISA> <newline> <tag/DTC/ DTC 3290 EISA SCSI in AHA-154x emulation.<newline> <tag/Seagate/ ST-01/02 Series <ISA><newline> <tag/UltraStor/ UH-14f Series <ISA><newline> UH-24f Series <EISA> <newline> UH-34f Series <VLB><newline> <tag/Western Digital/ WD7000 <ISA> <No scatter/gather> </descrip> <sect1> <heading>Which CD-ROM drives are supported by FreeBSD?</heading> Any SCSI drive connected to a supported controller. <itemize> <item>Mitsumi LU002 (8bit), LU005 (16bit) and FX001D (16bit 2x Speed). <item>Sony CDU 31/33A<newline> <item>Sound Blaster Non-SCSI CD-ROM<newline> <item>Matsushita/Panasonic CD-ROM<newline> <item>ATAPI compatible IDE CD-ROMs<newline> </itemize> All non-SCSI cards are known to be extremely slow compared to SCSI drives, and some ATAPI CDROMs may not work. As of 2.2 the FreeBSD CDROM from Walnut Creek supports booting directly from the CD. <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support ZIP drives?</heading> FreeBSD supports the SCSI ZIP drive out of the box, of course. The ZIP drive can only be set to run at SCSI target IDs 5 or 6, but if your SCSI host adapter's BIOS supports it you can even boot from it. I don't know which host adapters let you boot from targets other than 0 or 1... look at your docs (and let me know if it works out for you). There is no built in support for the parallel ZIP drive, and if you haven't bought your ZIP drive already I recommend you get the SCSI one... the price is the same, and the performance is much better, and you're unlikely to ever be able to boot from the parallel port. If you already have a parallel ZIP, there is a port of the Linux driver available at <url url="http://www.prism.uvsq.fr/~son/ppa3.html" name="Nicolas Souchu's home page"> in France. Also check out <ref id="jaz" name="this note on removable drives">, and <ref id="disklabel" name="this note on 'formatting'">. <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support JAZ, EZ and other removable drives?</heading> Apart from the IDE version of the EZ drive, these are all SCSI devices, so the should all look like SCSI disks to FreeBSD, and the IDE EZ should look like an IDE drive. <label id="jaz"> I'm not sure how well FreeBSD supports changing the media out while running. You will of course need to dismount the drive before swapping media, and make sure that any external units are powered on when you boot the system so FreeBSD can see them. See <ref id="disklabel" name="this note on 'formatting'">. <sect1> <heading>Which multi-port serial cards are supported by FreeBSD?</heading> There is a list of these in <htmlurl url="../handbook/handbook11.html" name="section 2.1.3 of the handbook"> Some unnamed clone cards have also been known to work, especially those that claim to be AST compatible. Check the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sio" name="sio"> man page to get more information on configuring such cards. <sect1> <heading>I have an unusual bus mouse. How do I set it up?</heading> FreeBSD supports the Logitech and ATI Inport bus mice. You need to add the following line to the kernel config file and recompile for the Logitech and ATI mice: <verb> device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5 vector mseintr </verb> <sect1> <heading>I have a PS/2 mouse (``keyboard'' mouse) How do I use it?<label id="ps2mouse"></heading> If you're running a relatively recent version of FreeBSD then you can simply enable it in the kernel configuration menu at installation time, otherwise later with -c at the boot: prompt. It is disabled by default, so you will need to enable it explicitly. If you're running an older version of FreeBSD then you'll have to add the following lines to your kernel configuration file and compile a new kernel: <verb> device psm0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" conflicts tty irq 12 vector psmintr # Options for psm: options PSM_CHECKSYNC #checks the header byte for sync. </verb> See the <url url="../handbook/kernelconfig.html" name="Handbook entry on configuring the kernel"> if you've no experience with building kernels. Once you have a kernel detecting psm0 correctly at boot time, make sure that an entry for psm0 exists in /dev. You can do this by typing: <verb> cd /dev; sh MAKEDEV psm0 </verb> When logged in as root. <sect1> <heading>How do I use the mouse/trackball/touchpad/etc... on my laptop?</heading> Please refer to <ref id="ps2mouse" name="the answer to the previous question">. And check out <ref id="pao" name="this note"> on the Mobile Computing page. <sect1> <heading>What types of tape drives are supported under FreeBSD?</heading> FreeBSD supports SCSI, QIC-36 (with a QIC-02 interface) and QIC-40/80 (Floppy based) tape drives. This includes 8-mm (aka Exabyte) and DAT drives. The QIC-40/80 drives are known to be slow. Some of the early 8-mm drives are not quite compatible with SCSI-2, and may not work well with FreeBSD. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support tape changers?</heading> FreeBSD 2.2 supports SCSI changers using the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ch(4)" name="ch"> device and the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?chio" name="chio"> command. The details of how you actually control the changer can be found in the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?chio" name="chio"> man page. If you're not using <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?amanda" name="AMANDA"> or some other product that already understands changers, remember that they're only know how to move a tape from one point to another, so you need to keep track of which slot a tape is in, and which slot the tape currently in the drive needs to go back to. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Which sound cards are supported by FreeBSD?</heading> FreeBSD supports the SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, SoundBlaster 16, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, AdLib and Gravis UltraSound sound cards. There is also limited support for MPU-401 and compatible MIDI cards. The SoundBlaster 16 ASP cards are not yet supported. The Microsoft Sound System is also supported. <bf/NOTE/ This is only for sound! This driver does not support CD-ROMs, SCSI or joysticks on these cards, except for the SoundBlaster. The SoundBlaster SCSI interface and some non-SCSI CDROMS are supported, but you can't boot off this device. <sect1> <heading>Which network cards does FreeBSD support?</heading> See <htmlurl url="../handbook/handbook10.html" name="Section 2.1.2 of the handbook"> for a more complete list. Since it doesn't list the drivers you need to use for each of the cards, this incomplete list will have to do. <descrip> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?de(4)" name="de"> driver/ DEC DC21x40 and compatible PCI controllers<newline> (including 21140 100bT cards) <newline> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ed(4)" name="ed"> driver/ NE2000 and 1000<newline> WD/SMC 8003, 8013 and Elite Ultra (8216)<newline> 3Com 3c503 <newline> HP 27247B and 27252A <newline> And clones of the above <newline> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?le(4)" name="le"> driver/ DEC EtherWORKS II and EtherWORKS III controllers. <newline> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ie(4)" name="ie"> driver/ AT&T EN100/StarLAN 10 <newline> 3COM 3c507 Etherlink 16/TP<newline> NI5210 <newline> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?is(4)" name="is"> driver/ Isolan AT 4141-0 <newline> Isolink 4110 <newline> <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?el(4)" name="el"> driver/ 3com 3c501 (does not support Multicast or DMA) <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?eg(4)" name="eg"> driver/ 3com 3c505 Etherlink/+ <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ze(4)" name="ze"> driver/ IBM PCMCIA credit card adapter <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?lnc(4)" name="lnc"> drive/ Lance/PCnet cards (Isolan, Novell NE2100, NE32-VL)(*) <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ep(4)" name="ep"> driver/ 3com 3c509 (Must disable PNP support on card) <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ix(4)" name="ix"> driver/ Intel InterExpress <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cx(4)" name="cx"> driver/ Cronyx/Sigma multiport Sync/Async (Cisco and PPP framing) <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?zp(4)" name="zp"> driver/ 3Com PCMCIA Etherlink III (aka 3c589)(A-C only) <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fea(4)" name="fea"> driver/ DEC DEFEA EISA FDDI controller <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fpa(4)" name="fpa"> driver/ DEC DEFPA PCI FDDI controller <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fe(4)" name="fe"> driver/ Fujitsu MB86960A/MB86965A Ethernet cards </descrip> <bf/NOTE/ Drivers marked with (*) are known to have problems. <bf/NOTE/ 3C598D is NOT supported yet. <bf/NOTE/ We also support TCP/IP over parallel lines. At this point we are incompatible with other versions, but we hope to correct this in the near future. <bf/NOTE/ Some of these cards require a DOS partition on your hard drive to run the configuration software. Software configured cards may also need to be hard-reset after running another operating system that uses manufacturer-supplied drivers. This may even require a full power cycle. <sect1> <heading>I don't have a math co-processor - is that bad?</heading> <tt /Note/ This will only affect 386/486SX/486SLC owners - other machines will have one built into the CPU. In general this will not cause any problems, but there are circumstances where you will take a hit, either in performance or accuracy of the math emulation code (see the section <ref id="emul" name="on FP emulation">). In particular, drawing arcs in X will be VERY slow. It is highly recommended that you buy a math co-processor; it's well worth it. <bf/NOTE/ Some math co-processors are better than others. It pains us to say it, but nobody ever got fired for buying Intel. Unless you're sure it works with FreeBSD, beware of clones. <sect1> <heading>What other devices does 2.X support?</heading> Here is a listing of drivers which do not fit into any of the earlier categories. <descrip> <tag><tt/b004.c/</tag> Driver for B004 compatible Transputer boards <newline> <tag>``ctx'' driver</tag> Driver for CORTEX-I Frame grabber <newline> <tag>``gp'' driver</tag> Driver for National Instruments AT-GPIB and<newline> AT-GPIB/TNT boards <tag>``pca'' driver</tag> Driver for PC speakers to allow the playing of audio files <tag>``spigot'' driver</tag> Driver for the Creative Labs Video Spigot <tag><htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?gsc(4)" name="gsc"> driver</tag> Driver for the Genuis GS-4500 Hand scanner <tag><htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?joy(4)" name="joy"> driver</tag> Driver for a joystick <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?labpc(4)" name="labpc"> driver/ Driver for National Instrument's Lab-PC and Lab-PC+ <tag/``uart'' driver/ Stand-alone 6850 UART for MIDI <tag/<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?psm(4)" name="psm"> driver/ PS/2 mouse port <tag><tt/tw.c/</tag> Driver for the X-10 POWERHOUSE <newline> </descrip>  <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support power management on my laptop?</heading> FreeBSD supports APM on certain machines. Please look in the <tt/LINT/ kernel config file, searching for the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?apm" name="APM"> keyword. <sect> <heading>Troubleshooting</heading> <sect1> <heading>I have bad blocks on my hard drive!<label id="awre"></heading> With SCSI drives, the drive should be capable of re-mapping these automatically. However, many drives are shipped with this feature disabled, for some mysterious reason... To enable this, you'll need to edit the first device page mode, which can be done on FreeBSD by giving the command (as root) <verb> scsi -f /dev/rsd0c -m 1 -e -P 3 </verb> and changing the values of AWRE and ARRE from 0 to 1:- <verb> AWRE (Auto Write Reallocation Enbld): 1 ARRE (Auto Read Reallocation Enbld): 1 </verb> For other drive types, you are dependent on support from the operating system. Unfortunately, the ``bad144'' command that FreeBSD supplies for this purpose needs a considerable amount of work done on it. In other words, it doesn't work. If you're lucky, you can create a file that contains the bad blocks and stuff it away with a name like ".BADBLOCKS". This is how I got 386BSD Patchkit 24 completed. <tt/NOTE/: don't do this unless your time is effectively free. IDE drives are <em/supposed/ to come with built-in bad-block remapping; if you have documentation for your drive, you may want to see if this feature has been disabled on your drive. However, ESDI, RLL, and ST-506 drives normally do not do this. <sect1> <heading>FreeBSD does not recognize my Bustek 742a EISA SCSI!</heading> This info is specific to the 742a but may also cover other Buslogic cards. (Bustek = Buslogic) There are 2 general ``versions'' of the 742a card. They are hardware revisions A-G, and revisions H - onwards. The revision letter is located after the Assembly number on the edge of the card. The 742a has 2 ROM chips on it, one is the BIOS chip and the other is the Firmware chip. FreeBSD doesn't care what version of BIOS chip you have but it does care about what version of firmware chip. Buslogic will send upgrade ROMS out if you call their tech support dept. The BIOS and Firmware chips are shipped as a matched pair. You must have the most current Firmware ROM in your adapter card for your hardware revision. The REV A-G cards can only accept BIOS/Firmware sets up to 2.41/2.21. The REV H- up cards can accept the most current BIOS/Firmware sets of 4.70/3.37. The difference between the firmware sets is that the 3.37 firmware supports ``round robin'' The Buslogic cards also have a serial number on them. If you have a old hardware revision card you can call the Buslogic RMA department and give them the serial number and attempt to exchange the card for a newer hardware revision. If the card is young enough they will do so. FreeBSD 2.1 only supports Firmware revisions 2.21 onward. If you have a Firmware revision older than this your card will not be recognized as a Buslogic card. It may be recognized as an Adaptec 1540, however. The early Buslogic firmware contains an AHA1540 ``emulation'' mode. This is not a good thing for an EISA card, however. If you have an old hardware revision card and you obtain the 2.21 firmware for it, you will need to check the position of jumper W1 to B-C, the default is A-B. The 742a EISA cards never had the ``>16MB'' problem mentioned in the section <ref id="bigram" name="on >16 MB machines">. This is a problem that occurs with the Vesa-Local Buslogic SCSI cards. <sect1> <heading>FreeBSD does not recognize my on-board AIC-7xxx EISA SCSI in an HP Netserver!</heading> This is basically a known problem. The EISA on-board SCSI controller in the HP Netserver machines occupies EISA slot number 11, so all the ``true'' EISA slots are in front of it. Alas, the address space for EISA slots >= 10 collides with the address space assigned to PCI, and FreeBSD's auto-configuration currently cannot handle this situation very well. So now, the best you can do is to pretend there were no address range clash :), by bumping the kernel option <tt/EISA_SLOTS/ to a value of 12. Configure and compile a kernel, as described in the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/kernelconfig.html" name="Handbook entry on configuring the kernel">. Of course, this does present you a chicken-and-egg problem when installing on such a machine. In order to work around this problem, a special hack is available inside UserConfig. Do not use the ``visual'' interface, but the plain command-line interface there. Simply type <verb> eisa 12 quit </verb> at the prompt, and install your system as usual. While it's recommendable to compile and install a custom kernel anyway, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?dset" name="dset"> now also understands to save this value. Hopefully, future version will have a proper fix for this problem. <tt/NOTE:/ You can not use a <bf/dangerously dedicated/ disk with an HP Netserver. See <ref id="dedicate" name="this note"> for more info. <sect1> <heading>What's up with this CMD640 IDE controller?</heading> It's broken. It cannot handle commands on both channels simultaneously. There's a workaround available now and it is enabled automatically if your system uses this chip. For the details refer to the manual page of the disk driver (man 4 wd). If you're already running FreeBSD 2.2.1 or 2.2.2 with a CMD640 IDE controller and you want to use the second channel, build a new kernel with <tt/options "CMD640"/ enabled. This is the default for 2.2.5 and later. <sect1> <heading>I keep seeing messages like ``<tt/ed1: timeout/''.</heading> This is usually caused by an interrupt conflict (e.g., two boards using the same IRQ). FreeBSD prior to 2.0.5R used to be tolerant of this, and the network driver would still function in the presence of IRQ conflicts. However, with 2.0.5R and later, IRQ conflicts are no longer tolerated. Boot with the -c option and change the ed0/de0/... entry to match your board. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>When I mount a CDROM, I get ``Incorrect super block''.</heading> You have to tell <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?mount" name="mount"> the type of the device that you want to mount. By default, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?mount" name="mount"> will assume the filesystem is of type ``<tt/ufs/''. You want to mount a CDROM filesystem, and you do this by specifying the ``<tt/-t cd9660/'' option to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?mount" name="mount">. This does, of course, assume that the CDROM contains an ISO 9660 filesystem, which is what most CDROMs have. As of 1.1R, FreeBSD automatically understands the Rock Ridge (long filename) extensions as well. As an example, if you want to mount the CDROM device, ``<tt>/dev/cd0c</tt>'', under <tt>/mnt</tt>, you would execute: <verb> mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0c /mnt </verb> Note that your device name (``<tt>/dev/cd0c</tt>'' in this example) could be different, depending on the CDROM interface. Note that the ``<tt/-t cd9660/'' option just causes the ``<tt/mount_cd9660/'' command to be executed, and so the above example could be shortened to: <verb> mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0c /mnt </verb> <sect1> <heading>When I mount a CDROM, I get ``Device not configured''.</heading> This generally means that there is no CDROM in the CDROM drive, or the drive is not visible on the bus. Feed the drive something, and/or check its master/slave status if it is IDE (ATAPI). It can take a couple of seconds for a CDROM drive to notice that it's been fed, so be patient. Sometimes a SCSI CD-ROM may be missed because it hadn't enough time to answer the bus reset. In you have a SCSI CD-ROM please try to add the following symbol into your kernel configuration file and recompile. <verb> options "SCSI_DELAY=15" </verb> <sect1> <heading>My printer is ridiculously slow. What can I do ?</heading> If it's parallel, and the only problem is that it's terribly slow, try setting your printer port into ``polled'' mode: <verb> lptcontrol -p </verb> Some newer HP printers are claimed not to work correctly in interrupt mode, apparently due to some (not yet exactly understood) timing problem. <sect1> <heading>My programs occasionally die with ``Signal 11'' errors.</heading> This can be caused by bad hardware (memory, motherboard, etc.). Try running a memory-testing program on your PC. Note that, even though every memory testing program you try will report your memory as being fine, it's possible for slightly marginal memory to pass all memory tests, yet fail under operating conditions (such as during bus mastering DMA from a SCSI controller like the Adaptec 1542, when you're beating on memory by compiling a kernel, or just when the system's running particularly hot). The SIG11 FAQ (listed below) points up slow memory as being the most common problem. Increase the number of wait states in your BIOS setup, or get faster memory. For me the guilty party has been bad cache RAM or a bad on-board cache controller. Try disabling the on-board (secondary) cache in the BIOS setup and see if that solves the problem. There's an extensive FAQ on this at <url url="http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/" name="the SIG11 problem FAQ"> <sect1> <heading>When I boot, the screen goes black and loses sync!</heading> This is a known problem with the ATI Mach 64 video card. The problem is that this card uses address <tt/2e8/, and the fourth serial port does too. Due to a bug (feature?) in the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sio" name="sio.c"> driver it will touch this port even if you don't have the fourth serial port, and <bf/even/ if you disable sio3 (the fourth port) which normally uses this address. Until the bug has been fixed, you can use this workaround: <enum> <item> Enter <tt/-c/ at the bootprompt. (This will put the kernel into configuration mode). <item> Disable <tt/sio0/, <tt/sio1/, <tt/sio2/ and <tt/sio3/ (all of them). This way the sio driver doesn't get activated -> no problems. <item> Type exit to continue booting. </enum> If you want to be able to use your serial ports, you'll have to build a new kernel with the following modification: in <tt>/usr/src/sys/i386/isa/sio.c</tt> find the one occurrence of the string <tt/0x2e8/ and remove that string and the preceding comma (keep the trailing comma). Now follow the normal procedure of building a new kernel. Even after applying these workarounds, you may still find that X Window does not work properly. Some newer ATI Mach 64 video cards (notably ATI Mach Xpression) do not run with the current version of <tt/XFree86/; the screen goes black when you start X Window, or it works with strange problems. You can get a beta-version of a new X-server that works better, by looking at <url url="http://www.xfree86.org" name="the XFree86 site"> and following the links to the new beta release. Get the following files: <tt>AccelCards, BetaReport, Cards, Devices, FILES, README.ati, README.FreeBSD, README.Mach64, RELNOTES, VGADriver.Doc, X312BMa64.tgz</tt> Replace the older files with the new versions and make sure you run <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=xf86config" name="xf86config"> again. <sect1> <heading>I have 128 MB of RAM but the system only uses 64 MB.<label id="reallybigram"></heading> Due to the manner in which FreeBSD gets the memory size from the BIOS, it can only detect 16 bits worth of Kbytes in size (65535 Kbytes = 64MB). If you have more than 64MB, FreeBSD will only see the first 64MB (or less... some BIOSes peg the memory size to 16M). To work around this problem, you need to use the kernel option specified below. There is a way to get complete memory information from the BIOS, but we don't have room in the bootblocks to do it. Someday when lack of room in the bootblocks is fixed, we'll use the extended BIOS functions to get the full memory information...but for now we're stuck with the kernel option. <tt> options "MAXMEM=<n>" </tt> Where <tt/n/ is your memory in Kilobytes. For a 128 MB machine, you'd want to use <tt/131072/. <sect1> <heading>FreeBSD 2.0 panics with ``kmem_map too small!''</heading> <tt /Note/ The message may also be ``mb_map too small!'' The panic indicates that the system ran out of virtual memory for network buffers (specifically, mbuf clusters). You can increase the amount of VM available for mbuf clusters by adding: <tt> options "NMBCLUSTERS=<n>" </tt> to your kernel config file, where <n> is a number in the range 512-4096, depending on the number of concurrent TCP connections you need to support. I'd recommend trying 2048 - this should get rid of the panic completely. You can monitor the number of mbuf clusters allocated/in use on the system with <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?netstat" name="netstat -m">. <sect1> <heading>``CMAP busy panic'' when rebooting with a new kernel.</heading> The logic that attempts to detect an out of data <tt>/var/db/kvm_*.db</tt> files sometimes fails and using a mismatched file can sometimes lead to panics. If this happens, reboot single-user and do: <verb> rm /var/db/kvm_*.db </verb> <sect1> <heading>ahc0: brkadrint, Illegal Host Access at seqaddr 0x0</heading> This is a conflict with an Ultrastor SCSI Host Adapter. During the boot process enter the kernel configuration menu and disable <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?uha(4)" name="uha0">, which is causing the problem. <sect1><heading>Sendmail says ``mail loops back to myself''</heading> This is answered in the sendmail FAQ as follows:- <verb> * I'm getting "Local configuration error" messages, such as: 553 relay.domain.net config error: mail loops back to myself 554 <user@domain.net>... Local configuration error How can I solve this problem? You have asked mail to the domain (e.g., domain.net) to be forwarded to a specific host (in this case, relay.domain.net) by using an MX record, but the relay machine doesn't recognize itself as domain.net. Add domain.net to /etc/sendmail.cw (if you are using FEATURE(use_cw_file)) or add "Cw domain.net" to /etc/sendmail.cf. </verb> The current version of the <url url="ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/sendmail-faq" name="sendmail FAQ"> is no longer maintained with the sendmail release. It is however regularly posted to <url url="news:comp.mail.sendmail" name="comp.mail.sendmail">, <url url="news:comp.mail.misc" name="comp.mail.misc">, <url url="news:comp.mail.smail" name="comp.mail.smail">, <url url="news:comp.answers" name="comp.answers">, and <url url="news:news.answers" name="news.answers">. You can also receive a copy via email by sending a message to <url url="mailto:mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" name="mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu"> with the command "send usenet/news.answers/mail/sendmail-faq" as the body of the message. </sect> <sect> <heading>Commercial Applications</heading> <bf/NOTE/ This section is still very sparse, though we're hoping, of course, that companies will add to it! :) The FreeBSD group has no financial interest in any of the companies listed here but simply lists them as a public service (and feels that commercial interest in FreeBSD can have very positive effects on FreeBSD's long-term viability). We encourage commercial software vendors to send their entries here for inclusion. <sect1> <heading>Where can I get Motif for FreeBSD?</heading> Contact <ref id="xig" name="Xi Graphics"> for a Motif 2.0 distribution for FreeBSD. This distribution includes: <itemize> <item>OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm. <item>Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include and Imake files. <item>Static and dynamic libraries. <item>Demonstration applets. <item>Preformatted man pages. </itemize> Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version of Motif when ordering! Versions for BSDI and Linux are also sold by Xi Graphics. This is currently a 4 diskette set... in the future this will change to a unified CD distribution like their CDE. <sect1> <heading>Where can I get CDE for FreeBSD?</heading> Contact <ref id="xig" name="Xi Graphics"> for a CDE 1.0.10 distribution for FreeBSD. This includes Motif 1.2.5, and can be used with Motif 2.0. This is a unified CDROM distribution for FreeBSD and Linux. <sect1> <heading>Are there any commercial high-performance X servers?<label id="xig"></heading> Yes, <url url="http://www.xig.com" name="Xi Graphics"> sells their Accelerated-X product for FreeBSD and other Intel based systems. This high performance X Server offers easy configuration, support for multiple concurrent video boards and is distributed in binary form only, in a unified diskette distribution for FreeBSD and Linux. There is a free "compatibility demo" of version 3.1 available. Xi Graphics also sells Motif and CDE for FreeBSD (see above). <descrip> <tag/More info/ <url url="http://www.xig.com/" name="Xi Graphics WWW page"> <tag/or/ <url url="mailto:sales@xig.com" name="Sales"> or <url url="mailto:support@xig.com" name="Support"> email addresses. <tag/or/ phone (800) 946 7433 or +1 303 298-7478. </descrip> <sect1> <heading>Are there any Database systems for FreeBSD?</heading> Yes! Conetic Software Systems has ported their C/base and C/books database systems to FreeBSD 2.0.5 and higher, and Sleepycat Software is selling a commercially supported version of the DB database library. <descrip> <tag/For more information/ <url url="http://www.conetic.com/" name="Conetic Software Systems"> <tag/or mail/ <url url="mailto:info@conetic.com" name="Information E-mail address">, <tag/and/ <url url="http://www.sleepycat.com/" name = "Sleepycat Software">. </descrip> <sect> <heading>User Applications</heading> <sect1> <heading>So, where are all the user applications?</heading> Please take a look at <url url="http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ports/" name="the ports page"> for info on software packages ported to FreeBSD. The list currently tops 1000 and is growing daily, so come back to check often or subscribe to the <tt/freebsd-announce/ <ref id="mailing" name="mailing list"> for periodic updates on new entries. Most ports should be available for both the 2.2 and 3.0 branches, and many of them should work on 2.1.x systems as well. Each time a FreeBSD release is made, a snapshot of the ports tree at the time of release in also included in the <tt>ports/</tt> directory. We also support the concept of a ``package'', essentially no more than a gzipped binary distribution with a little extra intelligence embedded in it for doing whatever custom installation work is required. A package can installed and uninstalled again easily without having to know the gory details of which files it includes. Use the package installation menu in <tt>/stand/sysinstall</tt> (under the post-configuration menu item) or invoke the pkg_add(1) command on the specific package files you're interested in installing. Package files can usually be identified by their .tgz suffix and CDROM distribution people will have a <tt>packages/All</tt> directory on their CD which contains such files. They can also be downloaded over the net for various versions of FreeBSD at the following locations: <descrip> <tag>for 2.1.x-release</tag> <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.1.7/" name="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.1.7/"> <tag>for 2.2.2-release/2.2-stable</tag> <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.2/" name="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-2.2/"> <tag>for 3.0-current</tag> <url url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-3.0/" name="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/packages-3.0/"> </descrip> or your nearest local mirror site. Note that all ports may not be available as packages since new ones are constantly being added. It is always a good idea to check back periodically to see which packages are available at the <url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/" name="ftp.freebsd.org"> master site. <sect1> <heading>ghostscript gives lots of errors with my 386/486SX.<label id="emul"></heading> You don't have a math co-processor, right? You will need to add the alternative math emulator to your kernel; you do this by adding the following to your kernel config file and it will be compiled in. <verb> options GPL_MATH_EMULATE </verb> <bf/NOTE/ You will need to remove the <tt/MATH_EMULATE/ option when you do this. <sect1> <heading>Where do I find libc.so.3.0?</heading> You are trying to run a package for 2.2/3.0 on a 2.1.x system. Please take a look at the previous section and get the correct port/package for your system. <sect1> <heading>When I run a SCO/iBCS2 application, it bombs on <tt/socksys/.</heading> You first need to edit the <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> (or <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf(5)" name="/etc/rc.conf">) file in the last section to change the following variable to <tt/YES/: <verb> # Set to YES if you want ibcs2 (SCO) emulation loaded at startup ibcs2=NO </verb> It will load the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ibcs2" name="ibcs2"> kernel module at startup. You'll then need to set up /compat/ibcs2/dev to look like: <verb> lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 9 Oct 15 22:20 X0R@ -> /dev/null lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 7 Oct 15 22:20 nfsd@ -> socksys -rw-rw-r-- 1 root wheel 0 Oct 28 12:02 null lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 9 Oct 15 22:20 socksys@ -> /dev/null crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 41, 1 Oct 15 22:14 spx </verb> You just need socksys to go to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?null(4)" name="/dev/null"> to fake the open & close. The code in -current will handle the rest. This is much cleaner than the way it was done before. If you want the <tt/spx/ driver for a local socket X connection, define <tt/SPX_HACK/ when you compile the system. <sect1> <heading>How do I configure INN (Internet News) for my machine?</heading> After installing the inn package or port, the <url url="http://www.math.psu.edu/barr/INN.html" name="Dave Barr's INN Page"> where you'll find the INN FAQ may be an excellent place to start. <sect> <heading>Kernel Configuration</heading> <sect1> <heading>I'd like to customize my kernel. Is it difficult?<label id="make-kernel"></heading> Not at all! First, you need either the complete <tt/srcdist/ or, at the minimum, the <tt/kerndist/ loaded on your system. This provides the necessary sources for building the kernel, as, unlike most commercial UNIX vendors, we have a policy of <bf/NOT/ shipping our kernel code in binary object form. Shipping the source takes a bit more space, but it also means that you can refer to the actual kernel sources in case of difficulty or to further your understanding of what's <bf/really/ happening. Once you have the <tt/kerndist/ or <tt/srcdist/ loaded, do this: <enum> <item> <tt>cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf</tt> <item> <tt/cp GENERIC MYKERNEL/ <item> <tt/vi MYKERNEL/ <item> <tt/config MYKERNEL/ <item> <tt>cd ../../compile/MYKERNEL</tt> <item> <tt/make depend/ <item> <tt/make all/ <item> <tt/make install/ <item> <tt/reboot/ </enum> Step 2 may not be necessary if you already have a kernel configuration file from a previous release of FreeBSD 2.X. - simply bring your old one over and check it carefully for any drivers that may have changed boot syntax or been rendered obsolete. A good kernel config file to look into is <tt/LINT/, which contains entries for <bf/all/ possible kernel options and documents them fairly well. The <tt/GENERIC/ kernel config file is used to build the initial release you probably loaded (unless you upgraded in-place) and contains entries for the most common configurations. It's a pretty good place to start from. If you don't need to make any changes to <tt/GENERIC/, you can also skip step 3, where you customize the kernel for your configuration. Step 8 should only be undertaken if steps 6 and 7 succeed. This will copy the new kernel image to <tt>/kernel</tt> and <bf/BACK UP YOUR OLD ONE IN/ <tt>/kernel.old</tt>! It's very important to remember this in case the new kernel fails to work for some reason - you can still select <tt>/kernel.old</tt> at the boot prompt to boot the old one. When you reboot, the new kernel will boot by default. If the compile in step 7 falls over for some reason, then it's recommended that you start from step 4 but substitute <tt/GENERIC/ for <tt/MYKERNEL/. If you can generate a <tt/GENERIC/ kernel, then it's likely something in your special configuration file that's bad (or you've uncovered a bug!). If the build of the <tt/GENERIC/ kernel does <bf/NOT/ succeed, then it's very likely that your sources are somehow corrupted. Finally, if you need to see your original boot messages again to compile a new kernel that's better tailored to your hardware, try the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?dmesg" name="dmesg"> command. It should print out all the boot-time messages printed by your old kernel, some of which may be quite helpful in configuring the new one. <bf/NOTE:/ I recommend making a dated snapshot of your kernel in <tt/kernel.YYMMDD/ after you get it all working, that way if you do something dire the next time you play with your configuration you can boot that kernel instead of having to go all the way back to <tt/kernel.GENERIC/. This is particularly important if you're now booting off a controller that isn't supported in the GENERIC kernel (yes, personal experience). <sect1> <heading>My kernel compiles fail because <tt/_hw_float/ is missing.</heading> Let me guess. You removed <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?npx(4)" name="npx0"> from your kernel configuration file because you don't have a math co-processor, right? Wrong! :-) The <tt/npx0/ is <bf/MANDATORY/. Even if you don't have a mathematic co-processor, you <bf/must/ include the <tt/npx0/ device. <sect1> <heading>Interrupt conflicts with multi-port serial code.</heading> Q. When I compile a kernel with multi-port serial code, it tells me that only the first port is probed and the rest skipped due to interrupt conflicts. How do I fix this? A. The problem here is that FreeBSD has code built-in to keep the kernel from getting trashed due to hardware or software conflicts. The way to fix this is to leave out the IRQ settings on all but one port. Here is a example: <verb> # # Multiport high-speed serial line - 16550 UARTS # device sio2 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty irq 5 flags 0x501 vector siointr device sio3 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr device sio4 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr device sio5 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr </verb> <sect1> <heading>How do I enable support for QIC-40/80 drives?</heading> You need to uncomment the following line in the generic config file (or add it to your config file), add a ``<tt/flags 0x1/'' on the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fdc(4)" name="fdc"> line and recompile. <verb> controller fdc0 at isa? port "IO_FD1" bio irq 6 drq 2 flags 0x1 vector fdintr disk fd0 at fdc0 drive 0 ^^^^^^^^^ disk fd1 at fdc0 drive 1 #tape ft0 at fdc0 drive 2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ </verb> Next, you create a device called <tt>/dev/ft0</tt> by going into <tt>/dev</tt> and run the following command: <verb> sh MAKEDEV ft0 </verb> for the first device. <tt/ft1/ for a second one and so on. You will have a device called <tt>/dev/ft0</tt>, which you can write to through a special program to manage it called ``<tt/ft/'' - see the man page on <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ft" name="ft"> for further details. Versions previous to <tt/-current/ also had some trouble dealing with bad tape media; if you have trouble where <tt/ft/ seems to go back and forth over the same spot, try grabbing the latest version of <tt/ft/ from <tt>/usr/src/sbin/ft</tt> in <tt/-current/ and try that. </sect1> <sect> <heading>System Administration</heading> <sect1> <heading>Where are the system start-up configuration files?</heading> From 2.0.5R to 2.2.2R, the primary configuration file is <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt>. All the options are to be specified in this file and other files such as <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc" name="/etc/rc"> and <tt>/etc/netstart</tt> just include it. Look in the <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> file and change the value to match your system. This file is filled with comments to show what to put in there. In post-2.2.2 and 3.0, <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> was renamed to a more self-describing <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf(5)" name="rc.conf"> file and the syntax cleaned up a bit in the process. <tt>/etc/netstart</tt> was also renamed to <tt>/etc/rc.network</tt> so that all files could be copied with a <tt><htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cp" name="cp"> /usr/src/etc/rc* /etc</tt> command. <tt>/etc/rc.local</tt> is here as always and is the place to start up additional local services like <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^inn" name="INN"> or set custom options. The <tt>/etc/rc.serial</tt> is for serial port initialization (e.g. locking the port characteristics, and so on.). The <tt>/etc/rc.i386</tt> is for Intel-specifics settings, such as iBCS2 emulation or the PC system console configuration. Starting with 2.1.0R, you can also have "local" startup files in a directory specified in <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> (or <tt>/etc/rc.conf</tt>): <verb> # Location of local startup files. local_startup=/usr/local/etc/rc.local.d </verb> Each file ending in <tt/.sh/ will be executed in alphabetical order. If you want to ensure a certain execution order without changing all the file names, you can use a scheme similar to the following with digits prepended to each file name to insure the ordering: <verb> 10news.sh 15httpd.sh 20ssh.sh </verb> It can be seen as ugly (or SysV :-)) but it provides a simple and regular scheme for locally-added packages without resorting to magical editing of <tt>/etc/rc.local</tt>. <sect1> <heading>How do I add a user easily?</heading> Use the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?adduser" name="adduser"> command. There is another package called ``<tt/new-account/'' also written in Perl by Ollivier Robert. Ask <tt><roberto@FreeBSD.ORG></tt> about it. It is currently undergoing further development. To remove the user again, use the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rmuser" name="rmuser"> command. <sect1> <heading>How can I add my new hard disk to my FreeBSD system?</heading> The easiest way to do this is from the installation program. You can start the installation program by running <tt>/stand/sysinstall</tt> as root. Alternatively, if you still have the install floppy, you can just reboot from that and use the partition & label editors while the system is totally quiescent. <label id="2_1-disklabel-fix"> If the above does not work for you, or if you're a total masochist who likes arcane interfaces, this is how to use <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?disklabel" name="disklabel"> manually: WARNING: There is no substitute for reading carefully & understanding what you are doing! Things described here may DESTROY your system. Proceed with caution! Remember, a BACKUP is your friend! <tt /sysinstall/ used to be broken up to 2.1.5-RELEASE and will insist on mounting something at / in the disklabel editor. You will have to manually run <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?disklabel" name="disklabel"> before you can run <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?newfs" name="newfs">/. This means doing the math for partitions yourself. This is rumored to be easy :-) See if you can obtain a skeletal label with ''<tt>disklabel -r <diskname></tt>'' (e.g. ''<tt>disklabel -r /dev/rwd0s2</tt>'', assuming that your new disk is wd0, the first IDE drive, and the FreeBSD slice is the second one, s2). You should see something like:- <verb> # /dev/rwd0s2: type: ESDI disk: wd0s2 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 64 sectors/cylinder: 4032 cylinders: 610 sectors/unit: 2459520 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # milliseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds drivedata: 0 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] c: 2459520 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 609) e: 2459520 0 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 609) </verb> Make sure that the size is correct, in this case, 2459520 sectors/unit x 512 bytes/sector / 2**20 (1 Megabyte) = 1200 Megabytes. The rest of the stuff (b/s, t/c, s/c, interleave, etc.) should get suitable defaults from <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?disklabel" name="disklabel">, but see <ref id="ESDI" name="this note"> for older disks. 'fsize' is the <ref id="fsize" name="Fragment size"> for the filesystem, and 'bsize' is the <ref id="bsize" name="Block size">. 'c' is the partition covering the entire slice (or entire disk for a non-sliced disk), and must remain as it is. It should not be used for a filesystem. The 'c' partition is magic in that it is faked by the kernel even if no disklabel exists. In the trivial case, where you want a single filesystem spanning the whole slice, the entry for 'e' has to be corrected. Setting fsize to 1024 and bsize to 8192 (8 fragments/block), which are reasonable values for a filesystem, the correct entry for 'e' would be:- <verb> e: 2459520 0 4.2BSD 1024 8192 </verb> Now, the (slightly) harder case, where we want 2 partitions for 2 filesystems. Following the <ref id="fsname" name="BSD naming conventions">, the partitions will be <tt /wd0s2e/ & <tt /wd0s2f/. Suppose we split up the 1200 MB into 300 MB for 'e' and the remaining 900 MB for 'f'. The partition entries would be:- <verb> 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] c: 2459520 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 609) e: 614400 0 4.2BSD 1024 8192 f: 1843200 614400 4.2BSD 1024 8192 </verb> <bf /Note:/ You can directly edit the disklabel with ''<tt>disklabel -e wd0s2</tt>''. See <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?disklabel" name="disklabel">. If you have at least FreeBSD 2.1.5, and you want to dedicate an entire disk to FreeBSD without any care for other systems, you might shorten the steps above to something like: <verb> # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd0 count=100 # disklabel -Brw wd0 auto # disklabel -e wd0 </verb> The first <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?dd" name="dd"> command ensures there is no old junk at the beginning of the disk that might confuse the disk code in the kernel. Following is an automatic skeleton label generation using the defaults that have been probed from the disk at boot time. Editing this label continues as described above. You're done! Time to initialize the filesystems with something like:- <verb> newfs -d0 /dev/rwd0s2e newfs -d0 /dev/rwd0s2f </verb> Depending on the disk name and slice number, it might be required that you run the script <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?MAKEDEV" name="/dev/MAKEDEV"> before in order to create the desired device nodes. And mount your new filesystems (See <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?mount" name="mount">):- <verb> mount /dev/wd0s2e /mnt/foo mount /dev/wd0s2f /mnt/bar </verb> You may wish to edit <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fstab(5)" name="/etc/fstab"> to automatically mount the filesystems at boot time. <bf /Glossary:/ <descrip> <tag><label id="fsize"><bf>Fragment Size (fsize)</bf></tag> The basic unit of storage for <tt /ffs/. See M. McKusick, W. Joy, S. Leffler, and R. Fabry, "A Fast File System for UNIX", ACM Transactions on Computer Systems 2, 3, pp 181-197, August 1984, (reprinted in the BSD System Manager's Manual, SMM:5) or <url url="file:/usr/share/doc/smm/05.fastfs/paper.ascii.gz" name="/usr/share/doc/smm/05.fastfs/paper.ascii.gz"> on your system. <tag><label id="bsize"><bf>Block Size (bsize)</bf></tag> A block comprises one or more fragments. See the reference above and <url url="file:/usr/include/sys/disklabel.h" name="<sys/disklabel.h>"> <tag><label id="ESDI"> <bf>Disklabel Characteristics for Older Disks (ESDI)</bf></tag> You may need to provide more information to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?disklabel" name="disklabel"> if you happen to own a ``true disk'', i.e. one with a uniform geometry, real heads, sectors, and cylinders, such as an old ESDI drive. All of this should be easily obtainable from the drive case, owner's manual, fellow sufferers, etc. :-) <tag><label id="fsname"> <bf>BSD Filesystem Naming Conventions</bf></tag> Partition 'a' is by convention reserved for a bootable partition, and partition 'b' for swap space. Regular partition names should start with 'd'. ('d' used to be magic in 386BSD 0.1 through FreeBSD 2.0, thus partition 'e' is often used for the first non-bootable partition containing a filesystem.) <tag><label id="swap"> <bf>Warning about swap space</bf></tag> The space required by the BSD partition table is allowed for in the file system. It's not allowed for by the swap partition. So don't start swap at cylinder 0, either offset it or put a file system in partition 'a'. </descrip> <sect1> <heading>I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?</heading> Whether it's a removable drive like a ZIP or an EZ drive (or even a floppy, if you want to use it that way), or a new hard disk, once it's installed and recognized by the system, and you have your cartridge/floppy/whatever slotted in, things are pretty much the same for all devices. <label id="disklabel"> (this section is based on <url url="http://vinyl.quickweb.com/mark/FreeBSD/ZIP-FAQ.html" name="Mark Mayo's ZIP FAQ">) If it's a ZIP drive or a floppy , you've already got a DOS filesystem on it, you can use a command like this: <verb> mount -t msdos /dev/fd0c /floppy </verb> if it's a floppy, or this: <verb> mount -t msdos /dev/sd2s4 /zip </verb> for a ZIP disk with the factory configuration. For other disks, see how they're laid out using <tt/fdisk/ or <tt>/stand/sysinstall</tt>. The rest of the examples will be for a ZIP drive on sd2, the third SCSI disk. Unless it's a floppy, or a removable you plan on sharing with other people, it's probably a better idea to stick a BSD file system on it. You'll get long filename support, at least a 2X improvement in performance, and a lot more stability. First, you need to redo the DOS-level partitions/filesystems. You can either use <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fdisk" name="fdisk"> or <tt>/stand/sysinstall</tt>, or for a small drive that you don't want to bother with multiple operating system support on, just blow away the whole FAT partition table (slices) and just use the BSD partitioning: <verb> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2 count=2 disklabel -Brw sd2 auto </verb> You can use disklabel (more info in <ref id="2_1-disklabel-fix" name="this note">) or <tt>/stand/sysinstall</tt> to create multiple BSD partitions. You'll certainly want to do this if you're adding swap space on a fixed disk, but it's probably irrelevant on a removable drive like a ZIP. Finally, create a new file system, this one's on our ZIP drive using the whole disk: <verb> <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?newfs" name="newfs"> /dev/rsd2c </verb> and mount it: <verb> mount /dev/sd2c /zip </verb> and it's probably a good idea to add a line like this to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fstab" name="/etc/fstab"> so you can just type "mount /zip" in the future: <verb> /dev/sd2c /zip ffs rw,noauto 0 0 </verb> <sect1> <heading>How do I mount a secondary DOS partition?</heading> The secondary DOS partitions are found after ALL the primary partitions. For example, if you have an "E" partition as the second DOS partition on the second SCSI drive, you need to create the special files for "slice 5" in /dev, then mount /dev/sd1s5: <verb> % cd /dev % ./MAKEDEV sd1s5 % mount -t msdos /dev/sd1s5 /dos/e </verb> <sect1> <heading>Can I mount other foreign filesystems under FreeBSD?</heading> <bf/ Digital UNIX/ UFS CDROMs can be mounted directly on FreeBSD. Mounting disk partitions from Digital UNIX and other systems that support UFS may be more complex, depending on the details of the disk partitioning for the operating system in question. <bf/ Linux/: 2.2 and later have support for <bf/ext2fs/ partitions. See <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?mount_ext2fs" name="mount_ext2fs"> for more information. Any other information on this subject would be appreciated. <sect1> <heading>How can I use the NT loader to boot FreeBSD?</heading> The general idea is that you copy the first sector of your native root FreeBSD or Linux partition into a file in the DOS/NT partition. Assuming you name that file something like <tt>c:\bootsect.bsd</tt> or <tt>c:\bootsect.lnx</tt> (inspired by <tt>c:\bootsect.dos</tt>) you can then edit the <tt>c:\boot.ini</tt> file to come up with something like this: <verb> [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows NT" C:\BOOTSECT.BSD="FreeBSD" C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Linux" C:\="DOS" </verb> This procedure assumes that DOS, NT, Linux, FreeBSD, or whatever have been installed into their respective fdisk partitions on the <bf/same/ disk. In my case DOS & NT are in the first fdisk partition, FreeBSD in the second, and Linux in the third. I also installed FreeBSD and Linux to boot from their native partitions, not the disk MBR, and without delay. Mount a DOS-formatted floppy (if you've converted to NTFS) or the FAT partition, under, say, <tt>/mnt</tt>. In FreeBSD: <verb> dd if=/dev/rsd0a of=/mnt/bootsect.bsd bs=512 count=1 </verb> In Linux: <verb> dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/mnt/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1 </verb> Reboot into DOS or NT. NTFS users copy the <tt/bootsect.bsd/ and/or the <tt/bootsect.lnx/ file from the floppy to <tt/C:\/. Modify the attributes (permissions) on <tt/boot.ini/ with: <verb> attrib -s -r c:\boot.ini </verb> Edit to add the appropriate entries from the example <tt/boot.ini/ above, and restore the attributes: <verb> attrib -r -s c:\boot.ini </verb> If FreeBSD or Linux are booting from the MBR, restore it with the DOS ``<htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fdisk" name="fdisk /mbr">'' command after you reconfigure them to boot from their native partitions. <sect1> <heading>How about FreeBSD and Linux? How do I boot FreeBSD from LILO?</heading> Theoretically you should be able to boot FreeBSD from LILO by treating it as a DOS-style operating system, but I haven't been able to get it to work. If you put LILO at the start of your Linux boot partition instead of in the MBR, you can boot LILO from the FreeBSD boot manager. This is what I do. If you're running Windows-95 and Linux this is recommended anyway, to make it simpler to get Linux booting again if you should need to reinstall Windows95 (which is a Jealous Operating System, and will bear no other Operating Systems in the Master Boot Record). <sect1> <heading>Will a ``dangerously dedicated'' disk endanger my health?</heading> <label id="dedicate"> The installation procedure allows you to chose two different methods in partitioning your harddisk(s). The default way makes it compatible with other operating systems on the same machine, by using fdisk table entries (called ``slices'' in FreeBSD), with a FreeBSD slice that employs partitions of its own. Optionally, one can chose to install a boot-selector to switch between the possible operating systems on the disk(s). Now, while this is certainly the common case for people coming from a PC background, those people coming more from a Unix background and who are going to setup a machine just to run FreeBSD and only FreeBSD, are more used to the classic Unix way where the operating system owns the entire disks, from the very first sector through the end. A true fdisk table isn't of any use in this case, the machine is running FreeBSD 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, no other operating system should ever be booted on it. So, if you select ``A)ll FreeBSD'' in sysinstall's fdisk editor, and answer the next question with ``No'', you'll get this mode. Note that this means the BSD bootstrap also forms the MBR for this drive, so there's no space left for anything like a boot manager. Don't ever try to install one, or you'll damage the BSD bootstrap. So why it is called ``dangerous''? A disk in this mode doesn't contain what normal PC utilities would consider a valid fdisk table. Depending on how well they have been designed, they might complain at you once they are getting in contact with such a disk, or even worse, they might damage the BSD bootstrap without even asking or notifying you. Some kind of operating system that is in rather widespread use on PCs is known for this kind of user-unfriendliness (of course, it does this in the name of ``user-friendliness''). At least one Award BIOS that is for example used in HP Netservers (but not only there) is known to ignore any harddisk that doesn't have what it believes to be a valid fdisk table. When it comes to booting, it simply ignores such a disk drive, advances to the floppy drive, and barfs at you with just ``Read error''. Very impressive, eh? They probably also call this ``user-friendly'', who knows? The advantages of this mode are: FreeBSD owns the entire disk, no need to waste several fictitious `tracks' for just nothing but a 1980-aged simplistic partitioning model enforcing some artificial and now rather nonsensical constraints on how this partitioning needs to be done. These constraints often lead to what might be the biggest headaches for OS installations on PCs, geometry mismatch hassles resulting out of two different, redundant ways how to store the partitioning information in the fdisk table. See the chapter about <ref id="missing_os" name="Missing Operating System">. In ``dangerously dedicated'' mode, the BSD bootstrap starts at sector 0, and this one is the only sector that always translates into the same C/H/S values, regardless of which `translation' your BIOS is using for your disk. Thus, you can also swap disks between systems/controllers that use a different translation scheme, without risking that they won't boot anymore. To return a ``dangerously dedicated'' disk for normal PC use, there are basically two options. The first is, you write enough NULL bytes over the MBR to make any subsequent installation believe this to be a blank disk. You can do this for example with <verb> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0 count=15 </verb> Alternatively, the undocumented DOS command <verb> fdisk /mbr </verb> is supposed to install a new master boot record as well, thus clobbering the BSD bootstrap. <sect1> <heading>How can I add more swap space?</heading> The best way is to increase the size of your swap partition, or take advantage of this convenient excuse to add another disk (and see <ref id="swap" name="this note"> if you do). Adding swap onto a separate disk makes things faster than simply adding swap onto the same disk. As an example, if you are compiling source located on one disk, and the swap is on another disk, this is much faster than both swap and compile on the same disk. This is true for SCSI disks specifically. IDE drives are not able to allow access to both drives on the same channel at the same time. I would still suggest putting your swap on a separate drive however. The drives are so cheap, it is not worth worrying about. It is a really bad idea to locate your swap file over NFS unless you are running in a fast networking environment, with a good server. If you can afford fast ethernet, you will not need my advice anyway. Here is an example for 64Mb vn-swap (<tt>/usr/swap0</tt>, though of course you can use any name that you want). Make sure your kernel was built with the line <verb> pseudo-device vn 1 #Vnode driver (turns a file into a device) </verb> in your config-file. The GENERIC kernel already contains this. <enum> <item> create a vn-device <verb> cd /dev; sh ./MAKEDEV vn0 </verb> <item> create a swapfile (<tt>/usr/swap0</tt>) <verb> dd if=/dev/zero of=/usr/swap0 bs=1024k count=64 </verb> <item> enable the swap file in /etc/rc.conf <verb> swapfile="/usr/swap0" # Set to name of swapfile if aux swapfile desired. </verb> <item> reboot the machine </enum> To enable the swap file immediately try <verb> vnconfig -ce /dev/vn0c /usr/swap0 swap </verb> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>I'm having problems setting up my printer.</heading> Please have a look at the Handbook entry on printing. It should cover most of your problem. See the <url url="../handbook/printing.html" name="Handbook entry on printing."> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>The keyboard mappings are wrong for my system.</heading> The kbdcontrol program has an option to load a keyboard map file. Under <tt>/usr/share/syscons/keymaps</tt> are a number of map files. Choose the one relevant to your system and load it. <verb> kbdcontrol -l uk.iso </verb> Both the <tt>/usr/share/syscons/keymaps</tt> and the <tt/.kbd/ extension are assumed by <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?kbdcontrol" name="kbdcontrol">. This can be configured in <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> (or <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf(5)" name="rc.conf">). See the appropriate comments in this file. In 2.0.5R and later, everything related to text fonts, keyboard mapping is in <tt>/usr/share/examples/syscons</tt>. The following mappings are currently supported: <itemize>  <item>Brazilian 275 keyboard Codepage 850 <item>Brazilian 275 keyboard ISO-8859-1 <item>Danish Codepage 865 <item>Danish ISO-8859-1 <item>French ISO-8859-1 <item>German Codepage 850 <item>German ISO-8859-1 <item>Italian ISO-8859-1 <item>Japanese 106 <item>Japanese 106x <item>Norwegian ISO-8859-1 <item>Russian Codepage 866 (alternative) <item>Russian koi8-r (shift) <item>Russian koi8-r <item>Spanish ISO-8859-1 <item>Swedish Codepage 850 <item>Swedish ISO-8859-1 <item>United Kingdom Codepage 850 <item>United Kingdom ISO-8859-1 <item>United States of America ISO-8859-1 <item>United States of America dvorak <item>United States of America dvorakx </itemize> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>I can't get user quotas to work properly.</heading> <enum> <item>Don't turn on quotas on '/', <item>Put the quota file on the file system that the quotas are to be enforced on. ie: <verb> FS QUOTA FILE /usr /usr/admin/quotas /home /home/admin/quotas ... </verb> </enum> <sect1> <heading>What's inappropriate about my ccd?</heading> The symptom of this is: <verb> host# ccdconfig -C ccdconfig: ioctl (CCDIOCSET): /dev/ccd0c: Inappropriate file type or format host# </verb> This usually happens when you are trying to concatenate the `c' partitions, which default to type `unused'. The ccd driver requires the underlying partition type to be FS_BSDFFS. Edit the disklabel of the disks you are trying to concatenate and change the types of partitions to `4.2BSD'. <sect1> <heading>Why can't I edit the disklabel on my ccd?</heading> The symptom of this is: <verb> host# disklabel ccd0 (it prints something sensible here, so let's try to edit it) host# disklabel -e ccd0 (edit, save, quit) disklabel: ioctl DIOCWDINFO: No disk label on disk; use "disklabel -r" to install initial label host# </verb> This is because the disklabel returned by ccd is actually a `fake' one that is not really on the disk. You can solve this problem by writing it back explicitly, as in: <verb> host# disklabel ccd0 > /tmp/disklabel.tmp host# disklabel -Rr ccd0 /tmp/disklabel.tmp host# disklabel -e ccd0 (this will work now) </verb> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support System V IPC primitives?</heading> Yes, FreeBSD supports System V-style IPC. This includes shared memory, messages and semaphores. You need to add the following lines to your kernel config to enable them. <verb> options SYSVSHM options "SHMMAXPGS=64" # 256Kb of sharable memory options SYSVSEM # enable for semaphores options SYSVMSG # enable for messaging </verb> Recompile and install. <bf/NOTE:/ You may need to increase SHMMAXPGS to some ridiculous number like 4096 (16M!) if you want to run GIMP. 256Kb is plenty for X11R6 shared memory. <sect1> <heading>How do I use sendmail for mail delivery with UUCP?</heading> The sendmail configuration that ships with FreeBSD is suited for sites that connect directly to the Internet. Sites that wish to exchange their mail via UUCP must install another sendmail configuration file. Tweaking <tt>/etc/sendmail.cf</tt> manually is considered something for purists. Sendmail version 8 comes with a new approach of generating config files via some <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?m4" name="m4"> preprocessing, where the actual hand-crafted configuration is on a higher abstraction level. You should use the configuration files under <verb> /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf </verb> If you didn't install your system with full sources, the sendmail config stuff has been broken out into a separate source distribution tarball just for you. Assuming you've got your CD-ROM mounted, do: <verb> cd /usr/src tar -xvzf /cdrom/dists/src/ssmailcf.aa </verb> Don't panic, this is only a few hundred kilobytes in size. The file <tt>README</tt> in the <tt>cf</tt> directory can serve as a basic introduction to m4 configuration. For UUCP delivery, you are best advised to use the mailertable feature. This constitutes a database that sendmail can use to base its routing decision upon. First, you have to create your <tt>.mc</tt> file. The directory <tt>/usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf</tt> is the home of these files. Look around, there are already a few examples. Assuming you have named your file <tt>foo.mc</tt>, all you need to do in order to convert it into a valid <tt>sendmail.cf</tt> is: <verb> cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf make foo.cf cp foo.cf /etc/sendmail.cf </verb> A typical <tt>.mc</tt> file might look like: <verb> include(`../m4/cf.m4') VERSIONID(`Your version number') OSTYPE(bsd4.4) FEATURE(nodns) FEATURE(nocanonify) FEATURE(mailertable) define(`UUCP_RELAY', your.uucp.relay) define(`UUCP_MAX_SIZE', 200000) MAILER(local) MAILER(smtp) MAILER(uucp) Cw your.alias.host.name Cw youruucpnodename.UUCP </verb> The nodns and nocanonify features will prevent any usage of the DNS during mail delivery. The UUCP_RELAY clause is needed for bizarre reasons, don't ask. Simply put an Internet hostname there that is able to handle .UUCP pseudo-domain addresses; most likely, you will enter the mail relay of your ISP there. Once you've got this, you need this file called <tt>/etc/mailertable</tt>. A typical example of this gender again: <verb> # # makemap hash /etc/mailertable.db < /etc/mailertable # horus.interface-business.de uucp-dom:horus .interface-business.de uucp-dom:if-bus interface-business.de uucp-dom:if-bus .heep.sax.de smtp8:%1 horus.UUCP uucp-dom:horus if-bus.UUCP uucp-dom:if-bus . uucp-dom:sax </verb> As you can see, this is part of a real-life file. The first three lines handle special cases where domain-addressed mail should not be sent out to the default route, but instead to some UUCP neighbor in order to ``shortcut'' the delivery path. The next line handles mail to the local Ethernet domain that can be delivered using SMTP. Finally, the UUCP neighbors are mentioned in the .UUCP pseudo-domain notation, to allow for a ``uucp-neighbor!recipient'' override of the default rules. The last line is always a single dot, matching everything else, with UUCP delivery to a UUCP neighbor that serves as your universal mail gateway to the world. All of the node names behind the <tt>uucp-dom:</tt> keyword must be valid UUCP neighbors, as you can verify using the command <tt>uuname</tt>. As a reminder that this file needs to be converted into a DBM database file before being usable, the command line to accomplish this is best placed as a comment at the top of the mailertable. You always have to execute this command each time you change your mailertable. Final hint: if you are uncertain whether some particular mail routing would work, remember the <tt>-bt</tt> option to sendmail. It starts sendmail in address test mode; simply enter ``0 '', followed by the address you wish to test for the mail routing. The last line tells you the used internal mail agent, the destination host this agent will be called with, and the (possibly translated) address. Leave this mode by typing Control-D. <verb> j@uriah 191% sendmail -bt ADDRESS TEST MODE (ruleset 3 NOT automatically invoked) Enter <ruleset> <address> > 0 foo@interface-business.de rewrite: ruleset 0 input: foo @ interface-business . de ... rewrite: ruleset 0 returns: $# uucp-dom $@ if-bus $: foo \ < @ interface-business . de > > ^D j@uriah 192% </verb> </sect1> </sect> <sect> <heading>The X Window System and Virtual Consoles</heading> <sect1> <heading>I want to run X, how do I go about it?</heading> The easiest way is to simply specify that you want to run X during the installation process. Then read and follow the documentation on the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=xf86config" name="xf86config"> tool, which assists you in configuring XFree86(tm) for your particular graphics card/mouse/etc. You may also wish to investigate the Xaccel server, which is available at a very reasonable price. See section <ref id="xig" name="on Xi Graphics"> for more details. <sect1> <heading>Why doesn't my mouse work with X</heading> If you are using syscons (the default console driver), you can configure FreeBSD to support a mouse pointer on each virtual screen. In order to avoid conflicting with X, syscons supports a virtual device called ``<tt>sysmouse</tt>''. All mouse events received from the real mouse device are written to the sysmouse device, using the MouseSystems protocol. If you wish to use your mouse on one or more virtual consoles, <bf/and/ use X, the following configuration is recommended: <verb> /etc/sysconfig (or rc.conf): mousedtype=ps/2 # or whatever your actual type is mousedport=/dev/psm0 # or whatever your real port is /etc/XF86Config Section Pointer Protocol "MouseSystems" Device "/dev/sysmouse" ..... </verb> Some people prefer to use ``<tt>/dev/mouse</tt>'' under X. To make this work, ``<tt>/dev/mouse</tt>'' should be linked to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sysmouse" name="/dev/sysmouse">: <verb> cd /dev rm -f mouse ln -s sysmouse mouse </verb> <sect1> <heading>Help! X Window menus and dialog boxes don't work right!</heading> Try turning off the Num Lock key. If your Num Lock key is on by default at boot-time, you may add the following line in the ``<tt/Keyboard/'' section of the <tt/XF86config/ file. <verb> # Let the server do the NumLock processing. This should only be required # when using pre-R6 clients ServerNumLock </verb> <sect1> <heading>What is a virtual console and how do I make more?</heading> Virtual consoles, put simply, enable you to have several simultaneous sessions on the same machine without doing anything complicated like setting up a network or running X. When the system starts, it will display a login prompt on the monitor after displaying all the boot messages. You can then type in your login name and password and start working (or playing!) on the first virtual console. At some point, you will probably wish to start another session, perhaps to look at documentation for a program you are running or to read your mail while waiting for an FTP transfer to finish. Just do Alt-F2 (hold down the Alt key and press the F2 key), and you will find a login prompt waiting for you on the second ``virtual console''! When you want to go back to the original session, do Alt-F1. The default FreeBSD installation has three virtual consoles enabled, and Alt-F1, Alt-F2, and Alt-F3 will switch between these virtual consoles. To enable more of them, edit <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys"> and add entries for ``<tt/ttyv4/'' to ``<tt/ttyvc/'' after the comment on ``Virtual terminals'' (delete the leading whitespace in the following example): <verb> # Edit the existing entry for ttyv3 in /etc/ttys and change # "off" to "on". ttyv3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv4 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv5 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv6 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv7 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv8 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyv9 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyva "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure </verb> Use as many or as few as you want. The more virtual terminals you have, the more resources that are used; this can be important if you have 8MB RAM or less. You may also want to change the ``<tt/secure/'' to ``<tt/insecure/''. <bf/IMPORTANT NOTE/ if you want to run an X server you <bf/MUST/ leave at least one virtual terminal unused (or turned off) for it to use. That is to say that if you want to have a login prompt pop up for all twelve of your Alt-function keys, you're out of luck - you can only do this for eleven of them if you also want to run an X server on the same machine. The easiest way to disable a console is by turning it off. For example, if you had the full 12 terminal allocation mentioned above and you wanted to run X, you would change settings for virtual terminal 12 from: <verb> ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 on secure </verb> to: <verb> ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure </verb> If your keyboard has only ten function keys, you would end up with: <verb> ttyv9 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure ttyva "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure ttyvb "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" cons25 off secure </verb> (You could also just delete these lines.) Once you have edited <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys">, the next step is to make sure that you have enough virtual terminal devices. The easiest way to do this is: <verb> cd /dev ./MAKEDEV vty12 # For 12 devices </verb> Next, the easiest (and cleanest) way to activate the virtual consoles is to reboot. However, if you really don't want to reboot, you can just shut down the X Window system and execute (as <tt/root/): <verb> kill -HUP 1 </verb> It's imperative that you completely shut down X Window if it is running, before running this command. If you don't, your system will probably appear to hang/lock up after executing the kill command. <sect1> <heading>How do I access the virtual consoles from X?</heading> If the console is currently displaying X Window, you can use Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc. to switch to a virtual console. Note, however, that once you've switched away from X Window to a virtual terminal, you use only the Alt- function key to switch to another virtual terminal or back to X Window. You do not also press the Ctrl key; the Ctrl-Alt-function key combination is used only when switching from X Window to a virtual terminal. If you insist on using the control key to switch back to X you can find your text console stuck in ``control-lock'' mode. Tap the control key to wake it up again. <sect1> <heading>How do I start XDM from the <tt>/etc/ttys</tt> file ?</heading> Starting <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=xdm" name="xdm"> via <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys"> is a Bad Thing. I don't know why this crept into some README file. Start it from your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc" name="rc.local">, and be explicit about how it has to start. If this is your last action in <tt/rc.local/, put a ``<tt/sleep 1/'' behind, to allow <tt/xdm/ to properly daemonize before the <tt/rc/ shell exits. <tt/xdm/ should be started without any arguments (i.e., as a daemon). <bf/NOTE:/ A previos version of this FAQ told you to add the <tt/vt/ you want X to use to the <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers</tt> file. This is not necessary: X will use the first free <tt/vt/ it finds. <sect1> <heading>When I run xconsole, I get ``Couldn't open console''.</heading> If you start <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=X" name="X"> with <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=startx" name="startx">, the permissions on /dev/console will <tt /not/ get changed, resulting in things like <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=xterm" name="xterm -C"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?manpath=xfree86&query=xconsole" name="xconsole"> not working. This is because of the way console permissions are set by default. On a multi-user system, one doesn't necessarily want just any user to be able to write on the system console. For users who are logging directly onto a machine with a VTY, the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fbtab" name="fbtab"> file exists to solve such problems. In a nutshell, make sure an uncommented line of the form <verb> /dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console </verb> is in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fbtab(5)" name="/etc/fbtab"> and it will ensure that whomever logs in on <tt>/dev/ttyv0</tt> will own the console. <sect1> <heading>My PS/2 mouse doesn't behave properly under X Window.</heading> Your mouse and the mouse driver have somewhat become out of synchronization. Switching away from X to a virtual terminal and getting back to X again may make them re-synchronized. If the problem occurs often, you may add the following option in your kernel configuration file and recompile it. <verb> options PSM_CHECKSYNC </verb> See the section on <ref id="make-kernel" name="building a kernel"> if you've no experience with building kernels. With this option, there should be less chance of synchronization problem between the mouse and the driver. If, however, you still see the problem, click any mouse button while holding the mouse still to re-synchronize the mouse and the driver. Note that unfortunately this option may not work with all the systems and voids the ``tap'' feature of the ALPS GlidePoint device attached to the PS/2 mouse port. <sect> <heading>Networking</heading> <sect1> <heading>Where can I get information on ``diskless booting''?</heading> ``Diskless booting'' means that the FreeBSD box is booted over a network, and reads the necessary files from a server instead of its hard disk. For full details, please read <url url="../handbook/diskless.html" name="the Handbook entry on diskless booting"> <sect1> <heading>Can a FreeBSD box be used as a dedicated network router?</heading> Internet standards and good engineering practice prohibit us from providing packet forwarding by default in FreeBSD. You can however enable this feature by changing the following variable to <tt/YES/ in <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> (or <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf" name="rc.conf">): <verb> # If you want this host to be a gateway, set to YES. gateway=YES </verb> This option will put the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sysctl" name="sysctl"> variable <tt/net.inet.ip.forwarding/ to <tt/1/. In most cases, you will also need to run a routing process to tell other systems on your network about your router; FreeBSD comes with the standard BSD routing daemon <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?routed" name="routed">, or for more complex situations you may want to try <em/GaTeD/ (available by FTP from <tt/ftp.gated.Merit.EDU/) which supports FreeBSD as of 3_5Alpha7. It is our duty to warn you that, even when FreeBSD is configured in this way, it does not completely comply with the Internet standard requirements for routers; however, it comes close enough for ordinary usage. <sect1> <heading>I want to recompile the latest BIND from ISC. It blows up during the compilation on some types conflicts. What can I do ? </heading> There is a conflict between the ``<tt/cdefs.h/'' file in the distribution and the one shipped with FreeBSD. Just remove <tt>compat/include/sys/cdefs.h</tt>. <sect1> <heading>Can I connect my Win95 box to the Internet via FreeBSD?</heading> Typically, people who ask this question have two PC's at home, one with FreeBSD and one with Win95; the idea is to use the FreeBSD box to connect to the Internet and then be able to access the Internet from the Windows95 box through the FreeBSD box. This is really just a special case of the previous question. There's a useful document available which explains how to set FreeBSD up as a <url url="http://www.ssimicro.com/~jeremyc/ppp.html" name="PPP Dialup Router"> <bf/NOTE:/ This requires having at least two fixed IP addresses available, and possibly three or more, depending on how much work you want to go through to set up the Windows box. As an alternative, if you don't have a fixed IP, you can use one of the private IP subnets and install <bf/proxies/ such as <url url="http://squid.nlanr.net/Squid/" name="SQUID"> and <url url="http://www.tis.com/" name="the TIS firewall toolkit"> on your FreeBSD box. <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support SLIP and PPP?</heading> Yes. See the man pages for <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?slattach" name="slattach">, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sliplogin" name="sliplogin">, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?pppd" name="pppd"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp">. <tt/pppd/ and <tt/ppp/ provide support for both incoming and outgoing connections. <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sliplogin" name="Sliplogin"> deals exclusively with incoming connections and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?slattach" name="slattach"> deals exclusively with outgoing connections. These programs are described in the following sections of the <url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="handbook">: <url url="../handbook/slips.html" name="Handbook entry on SLIP (server side)"> <url url="../handbook/slipc.html" name="Handbook entry on SLIP (client side)"> <url url="../handbook/ppp.html" name="Handbook entry on PPP (kernel version)"> <url url="../handbook/userppp.html" name="Handbook entry on PPP (user-mode version)"> If you only have access to the Internet through a "shell account", you may want to have a look at the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^slirp" name="slirp"> package. It can provide you with (limited) access to services such as ftp and http direct from your local machine. <sect1> <heading>Does FreeBSD support NAT or Masquerading</heading> If you have a subnet (one or more local machines), but have been allocated only a single IP number from your Internet provider, you may want to look at the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?natd" name="natd"> program. <tt/Natd/ allows you to connect an entire subnet to the internet using only a single IP number. The <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> program has similar functionality built in via the <tt/-alias/ switch. <sect1> <heading>I can't make <tt/ppp/ work. What am I doing wrong ?</heading> You should first read the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> manual page and the <url url="../handbook/userppp.html" name="ppp section of the handbook">. Enable logging with the command <verb> set log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp command </verb> This command may be typed at the <tt/ppp/ command prompt or it may be entered in the <tt>/etc/ppp/ppp.conf</tt> configuration file (the start of the <bf>default</bf> section is the best place to put it). Make sure that <tt>/etc/syslog.conf</tt> contains the lines <verb> !ppp *.* /var/log/ppp.log </verb> and that the file <tt>/var/log/ppp.log</tt> exists. You can now find out a lot about what's going on from the log file. Don't worry if it doesn't all make sense. If you need to get help from someone, it may make sense to them. If your version of ppp doesn't understand the "set log" command, you should download the <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/~brian" name="latest version">. It will build on FreeBSD version 2.1.5 and higher. <sect2> <heading>Ppp won't dial in -auto mode</heading> First, check that you've got a default route. By running <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?netstat"> name="netstat -rn">, you should see two entries like this: <verb> Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire default 10.0.0.2 UGSc 0 0 tun0 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1 UH 0 0 tun0 </verb> This is assuming that you've used the addresses from the handbook, the man page or from the ppp.conf.sample file. If you haven't got a default route, it may be because you're running an old version of <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> that doesn't understand the word <tt/HISADDR/ in the ppp.conf file. If your version of <tt/ppp/ is from before FreeBSD 2.2.5, change the <verb> add 0 0 HISADDR </verb> line to one saying <verb> add 0 0 10.0.0.2 </verb> Another reason for the default route line being missing is that you have mistakenly set up a default router in your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?rc.conf" name="/etc/rc.conf"> file (this file was called <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> prior to release 2.2.2), and you have omitted the line saying <verb> delete ALL </verb> from <tt>ppp.conf</tt>. If this is the case, go back to the <url url="../handbook/userppp:final.html" name="Final system configuration"> section of the handbook. <sect2> <heading>What does "No route to host" mean</heading> This error is usually due to a missing <verb> MYADDR: delete ALL add 0 0 HISADDR </verb> section in your <tt>/etc/ppp/ppp.linkup</tt> file. This is only necessary if you have a dynamic IP address or don't know the address of your gateway. If you're using interactive mode, you can type the following after entering <tt/packet mode/ (packet mode is indicated by the capitalized <bf/PPP/ in the prompt): <verb> delete ALL add 0 0 HISADDR </verb> Refer to the <url url="../handbook/userppp:dynamicIP.html" name="PPP and Dynamic IP addresses"> section of the handbook for further details. <sect2> <heading>My connection drops after about 3 minutes</heading> The default ppp timeout is 3 minutes. This can be adjusted with the line <verb> set timeout NNN </verb> where NNN is the number of seconds of inactivity before the connection is closed. If NNN is zero, the connection is never closed due to a timeout. It is possible to put this command in the <tt>ppp.conf</tt> file, or to type it at the prompt in interactive mode. It is also possible to adjust it on the fly while the line is active by connecting to <tt/ppp/s server socket using <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?telnet" name="telnet"> or <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?pppctl" name="pppctl">. Refer to the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> man page for further details. <sect2> <heading>My connection drops under heavy load</heading> If you have Link Quality Reporting (LQR) configured, it is possible that too many LQR packets are lost between your machine and the peer. Ppp deduces that the line must therefore be bad, and disconnects. Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, LQR was enabled by default. It is now disabled by default. LQR can be disabled with the line <verb> disable lqr </verb> <sect2> <heading>My connection drops after a random amount of time</heading> Sometimes, on a noisy phone line or even on a line with call waiting enabled, your modem may hang up because it thinks (incorrectly) that it lost carrier. There's a setting on most modems for determining how tolerant it should be to temporary losses of carrier. On a USR Sportster for example, this is measured by the S10 register in tenths of a second. To make your modem more forgiving, you could add the following send-expect sequence to your dial string: <verb> set dial "...... ATS10=10 OK ......" </verb> Refer to your modems manual for details. <sect2> <heading>Nothing happens after the Login OK! message</heading> Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, once the link was established, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ppp" name="ppp"> would wait for the peer to initiate the Line Control Protocol (LCP). Many ISPs will not initiate negotiations and expect the client to do so. To force <tt/ppp/ to initiate the LCP, use the following line: <verb> set openmode active </verb> <bf/Note/: It usually does no harm if both sides initiate negotiation, so openmode is now active by default. However, the next section explains when it <bf/does/ do some harm. <sect2> <heading>I keep seeing errors about magic being the same</heading> Occasionally, just after connecting, you may see messages in the log that say "magic is the same". Sometimes, these messages are harmless, and sometimes one side or the other exits. This normally happens on server machines with slow disks that are spawning a getty on the port, and executing ppp from a login script or program after login. The reason is that in the time taken between getty exiting and ppp starting, the client-side ppp starts sending Line Control Protocol (LCP) packets. Because ECHO is still switched on for the port on the server, the client ppp sees these packets "reflect" back. One part of the LCP negotiation is to establish a magic number for each side of the link so that "reflections" can be detected. The protocol says that when the peer tries to negotiate the same magic number, a NAK should be sent and a new magic number should be chosen. During the period that the server port has ECHO turned on, the client ppp sends LCP packets, sees the same magic in the reflected packet and NAKs it. It also sees the NAK reflect (which also means ppp must change its magic). This produces a potentially enormous number of magic number changes, all of which are happily piling into the servers tty buffer. As soon as ppp starts on the server, it's flooded with magic number changes and almost immediately decides it's tried enough to negotiate LCP and gives up. Meanwhile, the client, who no longer sees the reflections, becomes happy just in time to see a hangup from the server. The only way to circumvent this is to put the following line in your ppp.conf file: <verb> set openmode passive </verb> This tells ppp to wait for the server to initiate LCP negotiations. Some servers may never initiate negotiations. If this is the case, please report it as a bug (using send-pr). Ppp will need to be adjusted so that the user can configure a variable delay before initiating LCP negotiations. <sect2> <heading>Ppp locks up shortly after connecting</heading> Prior to version 2.2.5 of FreeBSD, it was possible that your link was disabled shortly after connection due to <tt/ppp/ mis-handling Predictor1 compression negotiation. This would only happen if both sides tried to negotiate different Compression Control Protocols (CCP). This problem is now corrected, but if you're still running an old version of <tt/ppp/, the problem can be circumvented with the line <verb> disable pred1 </verb> <sect2> <heading>Ppp locks up when I shell out to test it</heading> When you execute the <tt/shell/ or <tt/!/ command, <tt/ppp/ executes a shell (or if you've passed any arguements, <tt/ppp/ will execute those arguements). Ppp will wait for the command to complete before continuing. If you attempt to use the ppp link while running the command, the link will appear to have frozen. This is because <tt/ppp/ is waiting for the command to complete. If you wish to execute commands like this, use the <tt/!bg/ command instead. This will execute the given command in the background, and ppp can continue to service the link. <sect2> <heading>Ppp over a null-modem cable never exits</heading> There is no way for <tt/ppp/ to automatically determine that a direct connection has been dropped. This is due to the lines that are used in a null-modem serial cable. When using this sort of connection, LQR should always be enabled with the line <verb> enable lqr </verb> LQR is accepted by default if negotiated by the peer. <sect2> <heading>Why does ppp dial for no reason in -auto mode</heading> If <tt/ppp/ is dialing unexpectedly, you must determine the cause, and set up Dial filters (dfilters) to prevent such dialing. To determine the cause, use the following line: <verb> set log +tcp/ip </verb> This will log all traffic through the connection. The next time the line comes up unexpectedly, you will see the reason logged with a convenient timestamp next to it. You can now disable dialing under these circumstances. Usually, this sort of problem arises due to DNS lookups. To prevent DNS lookups from establishing a connection (this will <bf/not/ prevent <tt/ppp/ from passing the packets through an established connection), use the following: <verb> set dfilter 1 deny udp src eq 53 set dfilter 2 deny udp dst eq 53 set dfilter 3 permit 0/0 0/0 </verb> <sect2> <heading>What do these CCP errors mean</heading> I keep seeing the following errors in my log file: <verb> CCP: CcpSendConfigReq CCP: Received Terminate Ack (1) state = Req-Sent (6) </verb> This is because ppp is trying to negotiate Predictor1 compression, and the peer does not want to negotiate any compression at all. The messages are harmless, but if you wish to remove them, you can disable Predictor1 compression locally too: <verb> disable pred1 </verb> <sect2> <heading>Ppp locks up during file transfers with IO errors</heading> Under FreeBSD 2.2.2 and before, there was a bug in the tun driver that prevents incoming packets of a size larger than the tun interface's MTU size. Receipt of a packet greater than the MTU size results in an IO error being logged via syslogd. The ppp specification says that an MRU of 1500 should <bf>always</bf> be accepted as a minimum, despite any LCP negotiations, therefore it is possible that should you decrease the MTU to less than 1500, your ISP will transmit packets of 1500 regardless, and you will tickle this non-feature - locking up your link. The problem can be circumvented by never setting an MTU of less than 1500 under FreeBSD 2.2.2 or before. <sect2> <heading>None of this helps - I'm desperate !</heading> If all else fails, send as much information as you can, including your config files, how you're starting <tt/ppp/, the relevent parts of your log file and the output of the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?netstat" name="netstat -rn"> command (before and after connecting) to the <url url="mailto:freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org" name="freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org"> mailing list, and someone should point you in the right direction. <sect1> <heading>I can't create a <tt>/dev/ed0</tt> device!</heading> In the Berkeley networking framework, network interfaces are only directly accessible by kernel code. Please see the <tt>/etc/netstart</tt> file and the manual pages for the various network programs mentioned there for more information. If this leaves you totally confused, then you should pick up a book describing network administration on another BSD-related operating system; with few significant exceptions, administering networking on FreeBSD is basically the same as on SunOS 4.0 or Ultrix. <sect1> <heading>How can I setup Ethernet aliases?</heading> Add ``<tt/netmask 0xffffffff/'' to your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ifconfig" name="ifconfig"> command-line like the following: <verb> ifconfig ed0 alias 204.141.95.2 netmask 0xffffffff </verb> <sect1> <heading>How do I get my 3C503 to use the other network port?</heading> If you want to use the other ports, you'll have to specify an additional parameter on the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ifconfig" name="ifconfig"> command line. The default port is ``<tt/link0/''. To use the AUI port instead of the BNC one, use ``<tt/link2/''. <sect1> <heading>I'm having problems with NFS to/from FreeBSD.</heading> Certain PC network cards are better than others (to put it mildly) and can sometimes cause problems with network intensive applications like NFS. See <url url="../handbook/nfs.html" name="the Handbook entry on NFS"> for more information on this topic. <sect1> <heading>Why can't I NFS-mount from a Linux box?</heading> Some versions of the Linux NFS code only accept mount requests from a privileged port; try <verb> mount -o -P linuxbox:/blah /mnt </verb> <sect1> <heading>Why can't I NFS-mount from a Sun box?</heading> Sun workstations running SunOS 4.X only accept mount requests from a privileged port; try <verb> mount -o -P sunbox:/blah /mnt </verb> <sect1><heading>I'm having problems talking PPP to NeXTStep machines.</heading> Try disabling the TCP extensions in <tt>/etc/sysconfig</tt> (or <tt/rc.conf/) by changing the following variable to NO: <verb> tcp_extensions=NO </verb> Xylogic's Annex boxes are also broken in this regard and you must use the above change to connect thru them. <sect1> <heading>How do I enable IP multicast support?</heading> Multicast host operations are fully supported in FreeBSD 2.0 by default. If you want your box to run as a multicast router, you will need to load the <tt/ip_mroute_mod/ loadable kernel module and run <tt/mrouted/. For more information: <verb> Product Description Where --------------- ----------------------- --------------------------------------- faq.txt Mbone FAQ ftp.isi.edu:/mbone/faq.txt imm/immserv IMage Multicast ftp.hawaii.edu:/paccom/imm.src.tar.Z for jpg/gif images. nv Network Video. ftp.parc.xerox.com: /pub/net-reseach/exp/nv3.3alpha.tar.Z vat LBL Visual Audio Tool. ftp.ee.lbl.gov: /conferencing/vat/i386-vat.tar.Z wb LBL White Board. ftp.ee.lbl.gov: /conferencing/wb/i386-wb.tar.Z mmcc MultiMedia Conference ftp.isi.edu: Control program /confctrl/mmcc/mmcc-intel.tar.Z rtpqual Tools for testing the ftp.psc.edu:/pub/net_tools/rtpqual.c quality of RTP packets. vat_nv_record Recording tools for vat ftp.sics.se:archive/vat_nv_record.tar.Z and nv. </verb> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Which network cards are based on the DEC PCI chipset?</heading> Here is a list compiled by Glen Foster <tt/<gfoster@driver.nsta.org>/: <verb> Vendor Model - -------------------------------------------------------- ASUS PCI-L101-TB Accton ENI1203 Cogent EM960PCI Compex ENET32-PCI D-Link DE-530 DEC DE435 Danpex EN-9400P3 JCIS Condor JC1260 Linksys EtherPCI Mylex LNP101 SMC EtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332) SMC EtherPower (Model 8432) TopWare TE-3500P Zynx ZX342 </verb> </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Why do I have to use the FQDN for hosts on my site?</heading> You will probably find that the host is actually in a different domain; for example, if you are in foo.bar.edu and you wish to reach a host called ``mumble'' in the bar.edu domain, you will have to refer to it by the fully-qualified domain name, ``mumble.bar.edu'', instead of just ``mumble''. Traditionally, this was allowed by BSD BIND resolvers. However the current version of BIND that ships with FreeBSD no longer provides default abbreviations for non-fully qualified domain names other than the domain you are in. So an unqualified host <tt>mumble</tt> must either be found as <tt>mumble.foo.bar.edu</tt>, or it will be searched for in the root domain. This is different from the previous behavior, where the search continued across <tt>mumble.bar.edu</tt>, and <tt>mumble.edu</tt>. Have a look at RFC 1535 for why this was considered bad practice, or even a security hole. As a good workaround, you can place the line <tt> search foo.bar.edu bar.edu </tt> instead of the previous <tt> domain foo.bar.edu </tt> into your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?resolv.conf" name="/etc/resolv.conf">. However, make sure that the search order does not go beyond the ``boundary between local and public administration'', as RFC 1535 calls it. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>``Permission denied'' for all networking operations.</heading> If you have compiled your kernel with the <tt/IPFIREWALL/ option, you need to be aware that the default policy as of 2.1.7R (this actually changed during 2.1-STABLE development) is to deny all packets that are not explicitly allowed. If you had unintentionally misconfigured your system for firewalling, you can restore network operability by typing the following while logged in as root: <verb> ipfw add 65534 allow all from any to any </verb> For further information on configuring a FreeBSD firewall, see the <url url="../handbook/handbook.html" name="FreeBSD Handbook."> </sect1> <sect> <heading>Serial Communications</heading> This section answers common questions about serial communications with FreeBSD. <sect1> <heading>How do I tell if FreeBSD found my serial ports?</heading> As the FreeBSD kernel boots, it will probe for the serial ports in your system for which the kernel was configured. You can either watch your system closely for the messages it prints or run the command <verb> dmesg | grep sio </verb> after your system's up and running. Here's some example output from the above command: <verb> sio0 at 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa sio0: type 16550A sio1 at 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa sio1: type 16550A </verb> This shows two serial ports. The first is on irq 4, is using port address <tt/0x3f8/, and has a 16550A-type UART chip. The second uses the same kind of chip but is on irq 3 and is at port address <tt/0x2f8/. Internal modem cards are treated just like serial ports---except that they always have a modem ``attached'' to the port. The <tt/GENERIC/ kernel includes support for two serial ports using the same irq and port address settings in the above example. If these settings aren't right for your system, or if you've added modem cards or have more serial ports than your kernel is configured for, just reconfigure your kernel. See section <ref id="make-kernel" name="about building a kernel"> for more details. <sect1> <heading>How do I tell if FreeBSD found my modem cards?</heading> Please refer to the answer to the previous question. <sect1> <heading>I just upgraded to 2.0.5 and my <tt/tty0X/ are missing!</heading> Don't worry, they have been merged with the <tt/ttydX/ devices. You'll have to change any old configuration files you have, though. <sect1> <heading>How do I access the serial ports on FreeBSD?</heading> The third serial port, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sio" name="sio2"> (known as COM3 in DOS), is on <tt>/dev/cuaa2</tt> for dial-out devices, and on <tt>/dev/ttyd2</tt> for dial-in devices. What's the difference between these two classes of devices? You use <tt/ttydX/ for dial-ins. When opening <tt>/dev/ttydX</tt> in blocking mode, a process will wait for the corresponding <tt/cuaaX/ device to become inactive, and then wait for the carrier detect line to go active. When you open the <tt/cuaaX/ device, it makes sure the serial port isn't already in use by the <tt/ttydX/ device. If the port's available, it ``steals'' it from the <tt/ttydX/ device. Also, the <tt/cuaXX/ device doesn't care about carrier detect. With this scheme and an auto-answer modem, you can have remote users log in and you can still dialout with the same modem and the system will take care of all the conflicts. <sect1> <heading>How do I enable support for a multiport serial card?</heading> Again, the section on kernel configuration provides information about configuring your kernel. For a multiport serial card, place an <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?sio" name="sio"> line for each serial port on the card in the kernel configuration file. But place the irq and vector specifiers on only one of the entries. All of the ports on the card should share one irq. For consistency, use the last serial port to specify the irq. Also, specify the <tt/COM_MULTIPORT/ option. The following example is for an AST 4-port serial card on irq 7: <verb> options "COM_MULTIPORT" device sio4 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty flags 0x781 device sio5 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x781 device sio6 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x781 device sio7 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x781 irq 7 vector siointr </verb> The flags indicate that the master port has minor number 7 (<tt/0x700/), diagnostics enabled during probe (<tt/0x080/), and all the ports share an irq (<tt/0x001/). <sect1> <heading>Can FreeBSD handle multiport serial cards sharing irqs?</heading> Not yet. You'll have to use a different irq for each card. <sect1> <heading>How can I set the default serial parameters for a port?</heading> The <tt/ttydX/ (or <tt/cuaaX/) device is the regular device you'll want to open for your applications. When a process opens the device, it'll have a default set of terminal I/O settings. You can see these settings with the command <verb> stty -a -f /dev/ttyd1 </verb> When you change the settings to this device, the settings are in effect until the device is closed. When it's reopened, it goes back to the default set. To make changes to the default set, you can open and adjust the settings of the ``initial state'' device. For example, to turn on <tt/CLOCAL/ mode, 8 bits, and <tt>XON/XOFF</tt> flow control by default for ttyd5, do: <verb> stty -f /dev/ttyid5 clocal cs8 ixon ixoff </verb> A good place to do this is in <tt>/etc/rc.serial</tt>. Now, an application will have these settings by default when it opens <tt/ttyd5/. It can still change these settings to its liking, though. You can also prevent certain settings from being changed by an application by making adjustments to the ``lock state'' device. For example, to lock the speed of <tt/ttyd5/ to 57600 bps, do <verb> stty -f /dev/ttyld5 57600 </verb> Now, an application that opens <tt/ttyd5/ and tries to change the speed of the port will be stuck with 57600 bps. Naturally, you should make the initial state and lock state devices writable only by <tt/root/. The <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?MAKEDEV" name="MAKEDEV"> script does <bf/NOT/ do this when it creates the device entries. <sect1> <heading>How can I enable dialup logins on my modem?</heading> So you want to become an Internet service provider, eh? First, you'll need one or more modems that can auto-answer. Your modem will need to assert carrier-detect when it detects a carrier and not assert it all the time. It will need to hang up the phone and reset itself when the data terminal ready (<tt/DTR/) line goes from on to off. It should probably use <tt>RTS/CTS</tt> flow control or no local flow control at all. Finally, it must use a constant speed between the computer and itself, but (to be nice to your callers) it should negotiate a speed between itself and the remote modem. For many Hayes command-set--compatible modems, this command will make these settings and store them in nonvolatile memory: <verb> AT &C1 &D3 &K3 &Q6 S0=1 &W </verb> See the section <ref id="direct-at" name="on sending AT commands"> below for information on how to make these settings without resorting to an MS-DOS terminal program. Next, make an entry in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys"> for the modem. This file lists all the ports on which the operating system will await logins. Add a line that looks something like this: <verb> ttyd1 "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600" dialup on insecure </verb> This line indicates that the second serial port (<tt>/dev/ttyd1</tt>) has a modem connected running at 57600 bps and no parity (<tt/std.57600/, which comes from the file <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?gettytab" name="/etc/gettytab">). The terminal type for this port is ``dialup.'' The port is ``on'' and is ``insecure''---meaning root logins on the port aren't allowed. For dialin ports like this one, use the <tt/ttydX/ entry. It's common practice to use ``dialup'' as the terminal type. Many users set up in their .profile or .login files a prompt for the actual terminal type if the starting type is dialup. The example shows the port as insecure. To become root on this port, you have to login as a regular user, then <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?su" name="su">'' to <tt/root/. If you use ``secure'' then <tt/root/ can login in directly. After making modifications to <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys">, you need to send a hangup or <tt/HUP/ signal to the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?init" name="init"> process: <verb> kill -1 1 </verb> This forces the init process to reread <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys">. The init process will then start getty processes on all ``on'' ports. You can find out if logins are available for your port by typing <verb> ps -ax | grep '[t]tyd1' </verb> You should see something like: <verb> 747 ?? I 0:00.04 /usr/libexec/getty std.57600 ttyd1 </verb> <sect1> <heading>How can I connect a dumb terminal to my FreeBSD box?</heading> If you're using another computer as a terminal into your FreeBSD system, get a null modem cable to go between the two serial ports. If you're using an actual terminal, see its accompanying instructions. Then, modify <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?ttys" name="/etc/ttys">, like above. For example, if you're hooking up a WYSE-50 terminal to the fifth serial port, use an entry like this: <verb> ttyd4 "/usr/libexec/getty std.38400" wyse50 on secure </verb> This example shows that the port on <tt>/dev/ttyd4</tt> has a wyse50 terminal connected at 38400 bps with no parity (<tt/std.38400/ from <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?gettytab" name="/etc/gettytab">) and <tt/root/ logins are allowed (secure). <sect1> <heading>Why can't I run <tt/tip/ or <tt/cu/?</heading> On your system, the programs <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cu" name="cu"> are probably executable only by <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?uucp" name="uucp"> and group <tt/dialer/. You can use the group <tt/dialer/ to control who has access to your modem or remote systems. Just add yourself to group dialer. Alternatively, you can let everyone on your system run <tt/tip/ and <tt/cu/ by typing: <verb> chmod 4511 /usr/bin/cu chmod 4511 /usr/bin/tip </verb> <sect1> <heading>My stock Hayes modem isn't supported---what can I do?</heading> Actually, the man page for <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> is out of date. There is a generic Hayes dialer already built in. Just use ``<tt/at=hayes/'' in your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote"> file. The Hayes driver isn't smart enough to recognize some of the advanced features of newer modems---messages like <tt/BUSY/, <tt/NO DIALTONE/, or <tt/CONNECT 115200/ will just confuse it. You should turn those messages off when you use <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> (using <tt/ATX0&W/). Also, the dial timeout for <tt/tip/ is 60 seconds. Your modem should use something less, or else tip will think there's a communication problem. Try <tt/ATS7=45&W/. Actually, as shipped <tt/tip/ doesn't yet support it fully. The solution is to edit the file <tt/tipconf.h/ in the directory <tt>/usr/src/usr.bin/tip/tip</tt> Obviously you need the source distribution to do this. Edit the line ``<tt/#define HAYES 0/'' to ``<tt/#define HAYES 1/''. Then ``<tt/make/'' and ``<tt/make install/''. Everything works nicely after that. <sect1> <heading>How am I expected to enter these AT commands?<label id="direct-at"></heading> Make what's called a ``<tt/direct/'' entry in your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote"> file. For example, if your modem's hooked up to the first serial port, <tt>/dev/cuaa0</tt>, then put in the following line: <verb> cuaa0:dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#19200:pa=none </verb> Use the highest bps rate your modem supports in the br capability. Then, type <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip cuaa0"> and you'll be connected to your modem. If there is no <tt>/dev/cuaa0</tt> on your system, do this: <verb> cd /dev MAKEDEV cuaa0 </verb> Or use cu as root with the following command: <verb> cu -l``line'' -s``speed'' </verb> with line being the serial port (e.g.<tt>/dev/cuaa0</tt>) and speed being the speed (e.g.<tt>57600</tt>). When you are done entering the AT commands hit <tt>~.</tt> to exit. <sect1> <heading>The <tt/@/ sign for the pn capability doesn't work!</heading> The <tt/@/ sign in the phone number capability tells tip to look in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?phones(5)" name="/etc/phones"> for a phone number. But the <tt/@/ sign is also a special character in capability files like <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote">. Escape it with a backslash: <verb> pn=\@ </verb> <sect1> <heading>How can I dial a phone number on the command line?</heading> Put what's called a ``<tt/generic/'' entry in your <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote"> file. For example: <verb> tip115200|Dial any phone number at 115200 bps:\ :dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#115200:at=hayes:pa=none:du: tip57600|Dial any phone number at 57600 bps:\ :dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du: </verb> Then you can things like ``<tt/tip -115200 5551234/''. If you prefer <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cu" name="cu"> over <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip">, use a generic cu entry: <verb> cu115200|Use cu to dial any number at 115200bps:\ :dv=/dev/cuaa1:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du: </verb> and type ``<tt/cu 5551234 -s 115200/''. <sect1> <heading>Do I have to type in the bps rate every time I do that?</heading> Put in an entry for <tt/tip1200/ or <tt/cu1200/, but go ahead and use whatever bps rate is appropriate with the br capability. <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> thinks a good default is 1200 bps which is why it looks for a ``<tt/tip1200/'' entry. You don't have to use 1200 bps, though. <sect1> <heading>I access a number of hosts through a terminal server.</heading> Rather than waiting until you're connected and typing ``<tt/CONNECT <host>/'' each time, use tip's <tt/cm/ capability. For example, these entries in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote">: <verb> pain|pain.deep13.com|Forrester's machine:\ :cm=CONNECT pain\n:tc=deep13: muffin|muffin.deep13.com|Frank's machine:\ :cm=CONNECT muffin\n:tc=deep13: deep13:Gizmonics Institute terminal server:\ :dv=/dev/cua02:br#38400:at=hayes:du:pa=none:pn=5551234: </verb> will let you type ``<tt/tip pain/'' or ``<tt/tip muffin/'' to connect to the hosts pain or muffin; and ``<tt/tip deep13/'' to get to the terminal server. <sect1> <heading>Can tip try more than one line for each site?</heading> This is often a problem where a university has several modem lines and several thousand students trying to use them... Make an entry for your university in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?remote" name="/etc/remote"> and use <tt>\@</tt> for the <tt/pn/ capability: <verb> big-university:\ :pn=\@:tc=dialout dialout:\ :dv=/dev/cuaa3:br#9600:at=courier:du:pa=none: </verb> Then, list the phone numbers for the university in <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?phones" name="/etc/phones">: <verb> big-university 5551111 big-university 5551112 big-university 5551113 big-university 5551114 </verb> <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> will try each one in the listed order, then give up. If you want to keep retrying, run <tt/tip/ in a while loop. <sect1> <heading>Why do I have to hit CTRL+P twice to send CTRL+P once?</heading> CTRL+P is the default ``force'' character, used to tell <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> that the next character is literal data. You can set the force character to any other character with the <tt/~s/ escape, which means ``set a variable.'' Type ``<tt/~sforce=<single-char>/'' followed by a newline. <tt/<single-char>/ is any single character. If you leave out <tt/<single-char>/, then the force character is the nul character, which you can get by typing CTRL+2 or CTRL+SPACE. A pretty good value for <tt/<single-char>/ is SHIFT+CTRL+6, which I've seen only used on some terminal servers. You can have the force character be whatever you want by specifying the following in your <tt>$HOME/.tiprc</tt> file: <verb> force=<single-char> </verb> <sect1> <heading>Suddenly everything I type is in UPPER CASE??</heading> You must've pressed CTRL+A, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?tip" name="tip"> ``raise character,'' specially designed for people with broken caps-lock keys. Use <tt/~s/ as above and set the variable ``raisechar'' to something reasonable. In fact, you can set it to the same as the force character, if you never expect to use either of these features. Here's a sample .tiprc file perfect for Emacs users who need to type CTRL+2 and CTRL+A a lot: <verb> force=^^ raisechar=^^ </verb> The ^^ is SHIFT+CTRL+6. <sect1> <heading>How can I do file transfers with <tt/tip/?</heading> If you're talking to another UNIX system, you can send and receive files with <tt/~p/ (put) and <tt/~t/ (take). These commands run <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?cat" name="cat"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?echo" name="echo"> on the remote system to accept and send files. The syntax is: <verb> ~p <local-file> [<remote-file>] ~t <remote-file> [<local-file>] </verb> There's no error checking, so you probably should use another protocol, like zmodem. <sect1> <heading>How can I run zmodem with <tt/tip/?</heading> First, install one of the zmodem programs from the ports collection (such as one of the two from the comms category, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^lrzsz" name="lrzsz"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^rzsz" name="rzsz">). To receive files, start the sending program on the remote end. Then, press enter and type ``<tt/~C rz/'' (or ``<tt/~C lrz/'' if you installed lrzsz) to begin receiving them locally. To send files, start the receiving program on the remote end. Then, press enter and type ``<tt/~C sz <files>/'' (or ``<tt/~C lsz <files>/'') to send them to the remote system. </sect> <sect> <heading>Miscellaneous Questions</heading> <sect1> <heading>Why does FreeBSD consume far more swap space than Linux?</heading> It doesn't. You might mean ``why does my swap seem full?''. If that is what you really meant, it's because putting stuff in swap rather than discarding it makes it faster to recover than if the pager had to go through the file system to pull in clean (unmodified) blocks from an executable. The actual amount of dirty pages that you can have in core at once is not reduced; the clean pages are displaced as necessary. <sect1> <heading>What is FreeBSD's a.out executable format, and why not ELF?</heading> To understand why FreeBSD uses the <tt>a.out</tt> format, you must first know a little about the 3 currently "dominant" executable formats for UNIX: <itemize> <item><htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?a.out(5)" name="a.out"> The oldest and `classic' unix object format. It uses a short and compact header with a magic number at the beginning that's often used to characterize the format (see the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?a.out(5)" name="a.out(5)"> for more details). It contains three loaded segments: .text, .data, and .bss plus a symbol table and a string table. </item> <item><bf>COFF</bf> The SVR3 object format. The header now comprises a section table, so you can have more than just .text, .data, and .bss sections.</item> <item><bf>ELF</bf> The successor to <tt/COFF/, featuring Multiple sections and 32-bit or 64-bit possible values. One major drawback: <tt/ELF/ was also designed with the assumption that there would be only one ABI per system architecture. That assumption is actually quite incorrect, and not even in the commercial SYSV world (which has at least three ABIs: SVR4, Solaris, SCO) does it hold true. FreeBSD tries to work around this problem somewhat by providing a utility for branding a known <tt/ELF/ executable with information about the ABI it's compliant with. See the man page for <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?brandelf" name="brandelf"> for more information.</item> </itemize> FreeBSD comes from the "classic" camp and uses the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?a.out(5)" name="a.out"> format, a technology tried and proven through many generations of BSD releases. Though it has also been possible for some time to build and run native <tt/ELF/ binaries (and kernels) on a FreeBSD system, no official "push" to switch to ELF as the default format has, as yet, been made. Why? Well, when the Linux camp made their painful transition to <tt/ELF/, it was not so much to flee the <tt/a.out/ executable format as it was their inflexible jump-table based shared library mechanism, which made the construction of shared libraries very difficult for vendors and developers alike. Since the <tt/ELF/ tools available offered a solution to the shared library problem and were generally seen as "the way forward" anyway, the migration cost was accepted as necessary and the transition made. In FreeBSD's case, it's not quite so simple since our shared library mechanism is based more closely on Sun's <tt>SunOS</tt>-style shared library mechanism and, as such, is very easy to use. The only thing we actually lack with <tt/a.out/ which <tt/ELF/ would give us is cleaner support for C++ constructors and destructors, among other similarly esoteric things, and it simply hasn't become much of a problem yet (and there is quite a bit of C++ code in FreeBSD's source tree). Should that change, a migration may, at some point, be more seriously contemplated. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Why doesn't chmod change the permissions on symlinks?</heading> You have to use either ``<tt/-H/'' or ``<tt/-L/'' together with the ``<tt/-R/'' option to make this work. See the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?chmod" name="chmod"> and <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?symlink" name="symlink"> man pages for more info. <bf/WARNING/ the ``<tt/-R/'' option does a <bf/RECURSIVE/ <tt/chmod/. Be careful about specifying directories or symlinks to directories to <tt/chmod/. If you want to change the permissions of a directory referenced by a symlink, use <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?chmod" name="chmod"> without any options and follow the symlink with a trailing slash (``<tt>/</tt>''). For example, if ``<tt/foo/'' is a symlink to directory ``<tt/bar/'', and you want to change the permissions of ``<tt/foo/'' (actually ``<tt/bar/''), you would do something like: <verb> chmod 555 foo/ </verb> With the trailing slash, <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?chmod" name="chmod"> will follow the symlink, ``<tt/foo/'', to change the permissions of the directory, ``<tt/bar/''. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Why are login names <bf/still/ resticted to 8 characters</heading> You'd think it'd be easy enough to change <bf/UT_NAMESIZE/ and rebuild the whole world, and everything would just work. Unfortunately there's scads of applications and utilities (including system tools) that have hard-coded small numbers (not always "8" or "9", but oddball ones like "15" and "20") in structures and buffers... and it would break Sun's NIS clients and no doubt cause other problems in interacting with other UNIX systems. </sect1> <sect1> <heading>Can I run DOS binaries under FreeBSD?</heading> Not yet, though BSDI has just donated their <tt/rundos/ DOS emulation subsystem which we're now working on integrating and enhancing. Send mail to <url url="mailto:emulation@freebsd.org" name="The FreeBSD emulation discussion list"> if you're interested in joining this effort! For now, there is a neat utility called <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^pcemu" name="pcemu"> in the ports collection which emulates an 8088 and enough BIOS services to run DOS text mode applications. It requires the X Window System (provided as XFree86 3.1.2). <sect1> <heading>What is this thing called ``<tt/sup/'', and how do I use it?</heading> <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?^sup" name="SUP"> stands for Software Update Protocol, and was developed by CMU for keeping their development trees in sync. We used it to keep remote sites in sync with our central development sources. SUP is not bandwidth friendly, and has been retired. The current recommended method to keep your sources up to date is <url url="../handbook/cvsup.html" name="Handbook entry on CVSup"> <sect1> <heading>How cool is FreeBSD?</heading> Q. Has anyone done any temperature testing while running FreeBSD? I know Linux runs cooler than dos, but have never seen a mention of FreeBSD. It seems to run really hot. A. No, but we have done numerous taste tests on blindfolded volunteers who have also had 250 micrograms of LSD-25 administered beforehand. 35% of the volunteers said that FreeBSD tasted sort of orange, whereas Linux tasted like purple haze. Neither group mentioned any particular variances in temperature that I can remember. We eventually had to throw the results of this survey out entirely anyway when we found that too many volunteers were wandering out of the room during the tests, thus skewing the results. I think most of the volunteers are at Apple now, working on their new ``scratch and sniff'' GUI. It's a funny old business we're in! Seriously, both FreeBSD and Linux uses the ``<tt/HLT/'' (halt) instruction when the system is idle thus lowering its energy consumption and therefore the heat it generates. Also if you have APM (automatic power management) configured, then FreeBSD can also put the CPU into a low power mode. <sect1> <heading>Who's scratching in my memory banks??</heading> Q. Is there anything "odd" that FreeBSD does when compiling the kernel which would cause the memory to make a scratchy sound? When compiling (and for a brief moment after recognizing the floppy drive upon startup, as well), a strange scratchy sound emanates from what appears to be the memory banks. A. Yes! You'll see frequent references to ``daemons'' in the BSD documentation, and what most people don't know is that this refers to genuine, non-corporeal entities that now possess your computer. The scratchy sound coming from your memory is actually high-pitched whispering exchanged among the daemons as they best decide how to deal with various system administration tasks. If the noise gets to you, a good ``<tt>fdisk /mbr</tt>'' from DOS will get rid of them, but don't be surprised if they react adversely and try to stop you. In fact, if at any point during the exercise you hear the satanic voice of Bill Gates coming from the built-in speaker, take off running and don't ever look back! Freed from the counterbalancing influence of the BSD daemons, the twin demons of DOS and Windows are often able to re-assert total control over your machine to the eternal damnation of your soul. Given a choice, I think I'd prefer to get used to the scratchy noises, myself! </sect1> <sect> <heading>For serious FreeBSD hackers only</heading> <sect1> <heading>What's with all these SNAPshot, RELENG and RELEASE releases?</heading> There are currently three active/semi-active branches in the FreeBSD <url url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi" name="CVS Repository">: <itemize> <item><bf/RELENG_2_1_0/ AKA <bf/2.1-stable/ AKA <bf/"2.1 branch"/</item> <item><bf/RELENG_2_2/ AKA <bf/2.2-stable/ AKA <bf/"2.2 branch"/</item> <item><bf/HEAD/ AKA <bf/-current/ AKA <bf/3.0-current/</item> </itemize> <bf/HEAD/ is not an actual branch tag, like the other two, it's simply a symbolic constant for <em/"the current, non-branched development stream"/ which we simply refer to as <bf/-current/. Right now, <bf/-current/ is the 3.0 development stream and the <bf/2.2-stable/ branch, <bf/RELENG_2_2/, forked off from <bf/-current/ in November 1996. The <bf/2.1-stable/ branch, <bf/RELENG_2_1_0/,departed -current in September of 1994. <sect1> <heading>How do I make my own custom release?<label id="custrel"></heading> To make a release you need to do three things: First, you need to be running a kernel with the <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?vn" name="vn"> driver configured in. Add this to your kernel config file and build a new kernel: <verb> pseudo-device vn #Vnode driver (turns a file into a device) </verb> Second, you have to have the whole CVS repository at hand. To get this you can use <url url="../handbook/cvsup.html" name="CVSUP"> but your tag value, if any, should be `.' and your release name should be cvs: <verb> *default prefix=/home/ncvs base=/a host=cvsup.FreeBSD.org release=cvs delete compress use-rel=suffix ## Main Source Tree src-all src-eBones src-secure # Other stuff ports-all www </verb> Then run <tt/cvsup -g supfile/ to suck all the good bits into your box... Finally, you need a chunk of empty space to build into. Let's say it's in <tt>/some/big/filesystem</tt>, and from the example above you've got the CVS repository in <tt>/home/ncvs</tt>: <verb> setenv CVSROOT /home/ncvs # or export CVSROOT=/home/ncvs cd /usr/src/release make release BUILDNAME=3.0-MY-SNAP CHROOTDIR=/some/big/filesystem/release </verb> An entire release will be built in <tt>/some/big/filesystem/release</tt> and you will have a full FTP-type installation in <tt>/some/big/filesystem/release/R/ftp</tt> when you're done. If you want to build your SNAP along some other branch than -current, you can also add <tt/RELEASETAG=SOMETAG/ to the make release command line above, e.g. <tt/RELEASETAG=RELENG_2_2/ would build an up-to-the- minute 2.2 GAMMA snapshot. <sect1> <heading>How do I create customized installation disks?</heading> The entire process of creating installation disks and source and binary archives is automated by various targets in <tt>/usr/src/release/Makefile</tt>. The information there should be enough to get you started. However, it should be said that this involves doing a ``make world'' and will therefore take up a lot of time and disk space. <sect1> <heading>``make world'' clobbers my existing installed binaries.</heading> Yes, this is the general idea; as its name might suggest, ``make world'' rebuilds every system binary from scratch, so you can be certain of having a clean and consistent environment at the end (which is why it takes so long). If the environment variable <tt/DESTDIR/ is defined while running ``<tt/make world/'' or ``<tt/make install/'', the newly-created binaries will be deposited in a directory tree identical to the installed one, rooted at <tt>${DESTDIR}</tt>. Some random combination of shared libraries modifications and program rebuilds can cause this to fail in ``<tt/make world/'', however. <sect1> <heading>When my system boots, it says ``(bus speed defaulted)''.</heading> The Adaptec 1542 SCSI host adapters allow the user to configure their bus access speed in software. Previous versions of the 1542 driver tried to determine the fastest usable speed and set the adapter to that. We found that this breaks some users' systems, so you now have to define the ``<tt/TUNE_1542/'' kernel configuration option in order to have this take place. Using it on those systems where it works may make your disks run faster, but on those systems where it doesn't, your data could be corrupted. <sect1> <heading>Can I follow current with limited Internet access?<label id="ctm"></heading> Yes, you can do this <tt /without/ downloading the whole source tree by using the <url url="../handbook/ctm.html" name="CTM facility."> <sect1> <heading>How did you split the distribution up into 240k files?</heading> Newer BSD based systems have a ``<tt/-b/'' option to split that allows them to split files on arbitrary byte boundaries. Here is an example from <tt>/usr/src/Makefile</tt>. <verb> bin-tarball: (cd ${DISTDIR}; \ tar cf - . \ gzip --no-name -9 -c | \ split -b 240640 - \ ${RELEASEDIR}/tarballs/bindist/bin_tgz.) </verb> <sect1> <heading>I've written a kernel extension, who do I send it to?</heading> Please take a look at: <url url="../handbook/contrib.html" name="The Handbook entry on how to submit code."> And thanks for the thought! <sect1> <heading>How are Plug N Play ISA cards detected and initialised?</heading> By: Frank Durda IV <tt><uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org></tt> In a nutshell, there a few I/O ports that all of the PnP boards respond to when the host asks if anyone is out there. So when the PnP probe routine starts, he asks if there are any PnP boards present, and all the PnP boards respond with their model # to a I/O read of the same port, so the probe routine gets a wired-OR ``yes'' to that question. At least one bit will be on in that reply. Then the probe code is able to cause boards with board model IDs (assigned by Microsoft/Intel) lower than X to go ``off-line''. It then looks to see if any boards are still responding to the query. If the answer was ``<tt/0/'', then there are no boards with IDs above X. Now probe asks if there are any boards below ``X''. If so, probe knows there are boards with a model numbers below X. Probe then asks for boards greater than X-(limit/4) to go off-line. If repeats the query. By repeating this semi-binary search of IDs-in-range enough times, the probing code will eventually identify all PnP boards present in a given machine with a number of iterations that is much lower than what 2^64 would take. The IDs are two 32-bit fields (hence 2ˆ64) + 8 bit checksum. The first 32 bits are a vendor identifier. They never come out and say it, but it appears to be assumed that different types of boards from the same vendor could have different 32-bit vendor ids. The idea of needing 32 bits just for unique manufacturers is a bit excessive. The lower 32 bits are a serial #, ethernet address, something that makes this one board unique. The vendor must never produce a second board that has the same lower 32 bits unless the upper 32 bits are also different. So you can have multiple boards of the same type in the machine and the full 64 bits will still be unique. The 32 bit groups can never be all zero. This allows the wired-OR to show non-zero bits during the initial binary search. Once the system has identified all the board IDs present, it will reactivate each board, one at a time (via the same I/O ports), and find out what resources the given board needs, what interrupt choices are available, etc. A scan is made over all the boards to collect this information. This info is then combined with info from any ECU files on the hard disk or wired into the MLB BIOS. The ECU and BIOS PnP support for hardware on the MLB is usually synthetic, and the peripherals don't really do genuine PnP. However by examining the BIOS info plus the ECU info, the probe routines can cause the devices that are PnP to avoid those devices the probe code cannot relocate. Then the PnP devices are visited once more and given their I/O, DMA, IRQ and Memory-map address assignments. The devices will then appear at those locations and remain there until the next reboot, although there is nothing that says you can't move them around whenever you want. There is a lot of oversimplification above, but you should get the general idea. Microsoft took over some of the primary printer status ports to do PnP, on the logic that no boards decoded those addresses for the opposing I/O cycles. I found a genuine IBM printer board that did decode writes of the status port during the early PnP proposal review period, but MS said ``tough''. So they do a write to the printer status port for setting addresses, plus that use that address + <tt/0x800/, and a third I/O port for reading that can be located anywhere between <tt/0x200/ and <tt/0x3ff/. <sect1> <heading>Will FreeBSD ever support other architectures?</heading> Several different groups have expressed interest in working on multi-architecture support for FreeBSD and some people are currently working on a port of FreeBSD to the ALPHA, with the cooperation of DEC. For general discussion on new architectures, use the <tt><platforms@FreeBSD.ORG></tt> <ref id="mailing" name="mailing list">. <sect1> <heading>I need a major number for a device driver I've written.</heading> This depends on whether or not you plan on making the driver publicly available. If you do, then please send us a copy of the driver source code, plus the appropriate modifications to <tt>files.i386</tt>, a sample configuration file entry, and the appropriate <htmlurl url="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?MAKEDEV" name="MAKEDEV"> code to create any special files your device uses. If you do not, or are unable to because of licensing restrictions, then character major number 32 and block major number 8 have been reserved specifically for this purpose; please use them. In any case, we'd appreciate hearing about your driver on <tt><hackers@FreeBSD.ORG></tt>. <sect> <heading>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</heading> <verb> If you see a problem with this FAQ, or wish to submit an entry, please mail us at <FAQ@FreeBSD.ORG>. We appreciate your feedback, and cannot make this a better FAQ without your help! FreeBSD Core Team </verb> <descrip> <tag/Jordan Hubbard/ Occasional fits of FAQ-reshuffling and updating. <tag/Doug White/ Services above and beyond the call of duty on freebsd-questions <tag/Joerg Wunsch/ Services above and beyond the call of duty on Usenet <tag/Garrett Wollman/ Networking and formatting <tag/Jim Lowe/ Multicast information <tag/Peter da Silva/ FreeBSD FAQ typing machine slavey <tag/The FreeBSD Team/ Kvetching, moaning, submitting data </descrip> And to any others we've forgotten, apologies and heartfelt thanks! </article>