FreeBSD Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

March 1997

Welcome to FreeBSD! This handbook covers the installation and day to day use of FreeBSD Release 2.2. This manual is a work in progress and is the work of many individuals. Many sections do not yet exist and some of those that do exist need to be updated. If you are interested in helping with this project, send email to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG> The latest version of this document is always available from the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. It may also be downloaded in plain text, postscript or HTML from the FreeBSD FTP server or one of the numerous mirror sites. You may also want to Search the Handbook.

Part 1:
Basics

1. Introduction

1.1. FreeBSD in a nutshell

1.2. A brief history of FreeBSD

1.3. FreeBSD Project goals

1.4. The FreeBSD development model

1.5. About the current release

2. Installing FreeBSD

2.1. Supported Configurations

2.2. Preparing for the installation

2.3. Installing FreeBSD

2.4. MS-DOS user's Questions and Answers

3. Unix Basics

3.1. The online manual

3.2. GNU Info files

4. Installing applications

4.1. * Installing packages

4.2. The Ports collection

Part 2:
System Administration

5. Configuring the FreeBSD Kernel

5.1. Why build a custom kernel?

5.2. Building and Installing a Custom Kernel

5.3. The Configuration File

5.4. Making Device Nodes

5.5. If Something Goes Wrong

6. Users, groups and security

6.1. DES, MD5, and Crypt

6.2. S/Key

7. Printing

7.1. What the Spooler Does

7.2. Why You Should Use the Spooler

7.3. Setting Up the Spooling System

7.4. Simple Printer Setup

7.5. Using Printers

7.6. Advanced Printer Setup

7.7. Alternatives to the Standard Spooler

7.8. Acknowledgments

8. Disk quotas

8.1. Configuring your system to enable disk quotas

8.2. Setting quota limits

8.3. Checking quota limits and disk usage

8.4. * Quotas over NFS

9. The X Window System

10. PC Hardware compatibility

10.1. Resources on the Internet

10.2. Sample Configurations

10.3. Core/Processing

10.4. Input/Output Devices

10.5. Storage Devices

Part 3:
Network Communications

11. Serial Communications

11.1. Serial Basics

11.2. Terminals

11.3. Dialin service

11.4. Dialout service

12. PPP and SLIP

12.1. Setting up user PPP

12.2. Setting up kernel PPP

12.3. Setting up a SLIP client

12.4. Setting up a SLIP server

13. Advanced networking

13.1. Gateways and routes

13.2. NFS

13.3. Diskless operation

13.4. * Yellow Pages/NIS

13.5. ISDN

14. Electronic Mail

14.1. Basic Information

14.2. Configuration

14.3. FAQ

Part 4:
Advanced topics

15. Staying current with FreeBSD

15.1. What is FreeBSD-current?

15.2. Who needs FreeBSD-current?

15.3. What is FreeBSD-current NOT?

15.4. Using FreeBSD-current

16. Staying stable with FreeBSD

16.1. What is FreeBSD-stable?

16.2. Who needs FreeBSD-stable?

16.3. Using FreeBSD-stable

17. Synchronizing source trees over the Internet

17.1. CTM

17.2. CVSup

17.3. SUP

18. Contributing to FreeBSD

18.1. What is needed

18.2. How to contribute

18.3. Donors Gallery

19. Troubleshooting

19.1. Hardware conflict or misconfiguration

19.2. When I boot for the first time, it still looks for

20. Kernel Debugging

20.1. Debugging a kernel crash dump with kgdb

20.2. Post-mortem analysis of a dump

20.3. On-line kernel debugging using DDB

20.4. Debugging a console driver

21. Adding New Kernel Configuration Options

21.1. What's a kernel option, anyway?

21.2. Now what do I have to do for it?

22. Linux Emulation

22.1. How to install the Linux emulator

22.2. How to Install Mathematica on FreeBSD

23. FreeBSD internals

23.1. The FreeBSD Booting Process

23.2. PC memory utilization

23.3. DMA: What it is and how it works

Part 5:
Appendices

24. Obtaining FreeBSD

24.1. CD-ROM Publishers

24.2. FTP Sites

24.3. CTM Sites

24.4. CVSup Sites

25. Bibliography

25.1. Books & magazines specific to FreeBSD

25.2. Users' guides

25.3. Administrators' guides

25.4. Programmers' guides

25.5. Operating System Internals

25.6. Security reference

25.7. Hardware reference

25.8. UNIX history

25.9. Magazines and journals

26. Resources on the Internet

26.1. Mailing lists

26.2. Usenet newsgroups

26.3. World Wide Web servers

27. FreeBSD Project Staff

27.1. The FreeBSD core team

27.2. The FreeBSD Developers

27.3. The FreeBSD Documentation Project

27.4. Who is responsible for what

28. FreeBSD contributor list

28.1. Derived software contributors

28.2. Hardware contributors

28.3. Additional FreeBSD contributors

28.4. 386BSD Patch kit patch contributors

29. Source Tree Guidelines and Policies

29.1. MAINTAINER on Makefiles

29.2. Contributed software

29.3. Shared libraries

30. PGP keys

30.2. Core team members