Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Before you dive headlong into the world of Debian GNU / Linux a few years I have worked almost exclusively with FreeBSD, which continued to use on some servers that host critical applications.

As (almost) everyone knows, FreeBSD offers two distinct mechanisms to install applications: the system of Packages for the installation of prebuilt packages el'albero of Ports to install autocompilante. The first method of managing the package resembles fully with those adopted by major Linux distributions. For those who work routinely with Slackware similarities are particularly evident, as shown by the screenshot of a page of `` sysinstall that play below.

Unlike the case of ports, which in a sense are the "real" instrument of management software under FreeBSD. The management of ports allows you to download locally the tree or the tree full of instructions for building and installing divided by categories of software. In each port downloaded in the local tree is given a description of the dependencies and the skeleton of the code. Through a series of simple commands you can install, uninstall, reinstall, delete, update every program installed on the server, including the core operating system.

For proper maintenance of ports is dell'alberatura well provide a mechanism for updating the tree. First, make sure that the ports are installed on the server, otherwise pensiamoci us:

# pkg_add -r cvsup-without-gui
# mkdir /usr/ports

The first command CVSup install the software that runs under FreeBSD is the versioning of the port.

We shall now proceed to dell'alberatura updated population of ports:

# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup9.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile

It often happens that, after several seconds of inactivity, the command returns an error of connection. Do not worry, in this case, wait a few seconds or try to change repository climbing 9 - theoretically the least used - to fall:

# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup8.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup7.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup6.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup5.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup4.FreeBSD.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
[...]

By repeating this simple operation whenever we want to make a full upgrade of ports have always available updated software for our FreeBSD server. If we want to, for example, install the latest version of `mutt`, the renowned management program of e-mail from the command line, proceed as follows:

# cd /usr/ports
# make search name=Mutt
# cd mail/mutt
# make install clean

Done ...

It is today's press release announcing the official release of PC-BSD 1.5.1, the desktop operating system based on FreeBSD 6: "PC-BSD version 1.5.1 is now available for download as both ISO and updates from version 1.5. This version provides updates to the default port set, as well as numerous bug fixes to the system tools and utilities. Also, additional translations have been added to provide a more complete localized experience. "I used PC-BSD on machines testing for several months and I find it an extraordinary product. First of all because I am a staunch supporter of FreeBSD. Then because the benefits in terms of performance compared to Linux are substantial. Unfortunately I can not say the same about the compatibility and dissemination of s / w, still very, very low.

In this post carry over some of my old notes on how to create and install an SSL certificate on a web server Apache 1.3 .* with the mod_ssl module. For more detailed and comprehensive reference documentation that is at http://www.modssl.org/docs s page of `man` openssl. An html version of the latter is at http://www.openssl.org/docs/. Read More »

After two Release Candidate was announced the final release of the ramo FreeBSD-STABLE! Even if you do not have been big news (for those we will have to wait for the 7.0) are several version updates and security that make it interesting this new release. Anyone who wants to try to use FreeBSD on the desktop, appreciate the adoption of new versions of GNOME (2.20.1), KDE (3.5.8) and X.org (7.3). Improved greatly - what we read about - the hardware support, especially on the front audio, network and acpi. Council reading this mini-guide to upgrade from version 6.2 to 6.3. Read More »