Unix Server Tech Knowledge Base

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====== Quick FreeBSD Tricks ======

In several places, I have simply inserted the code as a script to be downloaded. I tend to keep things like this around so I can just run a simple command instead of copying/pasting an entire line.

===== Hardware Devices =====

==== To locate all attached drives, scan dmesg.boot ====
<code bash findDrives.sh>
#! /bin/sh

egrep '(ad|cd|da)[0-9]' /var/run/dmesg.boot | sort
</code>

Or, simply run
<code bash>geom disk list</code>

==== List USB devices ====

<code bash>usbconfig</code>

===== Monitoring =====

==== CPU Temperatures ====

Following command will show you the temperature of each core of a processor
<code bash>sysctl -a | grep temperature | grep cpu</code>

==== iotop substitute ====

iotop is a well known utility under Linux, but not available for FreeBSD. However, the following command will do the same thing (does not apparently work for iSCSI devices)

<code>top -m io -o total</code>

==== watch substitute ====

Under Linux, watch repeats a command over and over, so it is useful for monitoring long running processes. The FreeBSD command //cmdwatch// does the same thing, with the same flags.

<code bash>cmdwatch zpool iostat -v</code>

===== Package Management =====
==== setting pkg to not ask permission ====

I was used to Debian's apt-get, and used the -y (answer "Yes" to all questions) parameter. Looking for something similar for pkg, I ran across [[http://dan.langille.org/2013/12/06/bootstrapping-installing-pkg-on-freebsd-unattended-and-without-answering-yes/]] which showed a possible answer; set an environmental variable as part of the call.

<code>env ASSUME_ALWAYS_YES=YES pkg install p5-libwww</code>

will install LWP (p5-libwww) without waiting for you to select "Yes"

==== clean pkg cache ====

After a while, your pkg cache will use more and more space on your disk, with copies of packages you have already installed. The following command cleans that cache.

<code>pkg clean</code>

===== User Administration =====
==== Administrative Permission ====
By default, a new user is **not** able to become root. To do this, you must add them to the //wheel// group. Use the following command

<code>pw user  mod  username -G wheel</code>

where //username// is the username of the user who has access

==== Changing Shell ====

I just like //bash// for my shell. While it is not the standard for BSD, it is much more powerful than the standard //sh//, so I like to use it for my personal account. Once bash is installed, set it as the default shell for a user.

<code>chsh -s bash username</code>

Warning: do not modify the root account's shell. You will break your system. If you want a bash script to run as root, be sure to include
<code>#! /usr/bin/env bash</code>
at the head of your scripts.

===== zfs tricks =====
  * zfs unshare -a
  * zfs share -a
  * showmount -e