https://kb.unixservertech.com/ 2026-04-27T18:12:08+00:00 https://kb.unixservertech.com/ https://kb.unixservertech.com/_media/wiki/dokuwiki.svg text/html 2026-02-14T17:54:09+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/bootscripts?rev=1771091649&do=diff Boot Time Scripts on FreeBSD Sometimes you need to run a script at a specific point during the FreeBSD boot process. For example: * Synchronizing the system clock: If your system clock drifts too far out of sync, ntpd may not be able to correct it. Running text/html 2016-09-06T02:03:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/install_on_older_computers?rev=1473127413&do=diff Installing on older computers FreeBSD installer sets up GPT by default. However, I have some servers which have spent years (decades?) in a NOC. Constant temperature, constant humidity, and very, very clean electricity. Some of these are so old, they don't know what to do with GPT. text/html 2019-03-28T05:04:54+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/installing_to_usb_thumbdrive?rev=1553749494&do=diff Installing on USB Thumbdrive The main thing with using a USB thumbdrive is to decrease the number of writes. Compared to SSD and platter based block storage devices (disk drives, called “spinner” in this document), USB has a very limited number of writes available. text/html 2025-03-21T19:41:21+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/ipmi_sol?rev=1742586081&do=diff Serial Port Console under FreeBSD First, determine what serial port you want to use. For IPMI Serial over Lan (SOL), it is whatever is designated in the firmware (BIOS or UEFI) as the console. For Xen, it is most like the first serial port (ttyu0, aka com1 for Windoze users). You will also need the port address to use (0x3F8 for the first port, 0x2F8 for second port, do a google search for the others). text/html 2018-07-04T23:39:32+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/packetfilter?rev=1530747572&do=diff Using PF for Firewall Introduction Packet Filtering (pf) is one of the many firewalls available with FreeBSD. I believe it originally came from OpenBSD and has been ported to many operating systems since. To enable pf in FreeBSD, you need to create the file text/html 2025-11-24T03:45:38+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/quick_tips?rev=1763955938&do=diff 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 text/html 2016-09-08T05:11:42+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/ramdisks?rev=1473311502&do=diff RamDisks Found this nice little script that avoids some of the confusion of creating RamDisks under FreeBSD. Just making my own copy here. It creates md10 only, and frees it when you're done (just change the variables). This creates it as a RAMDisk on Swap. If you want to use main memory, add -M in the mdmfs command text/html 2026-02-14T17:57:37+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/start?rev=1771091857&do=diff FreeBSD Unix BSD Unix is one of the oldest still in existence, dating from 1977. As such, it is rock solid with decades of bug fixes, enhancements and tweaks. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution> if you want historical information on this fantastically stable operating system. In the early 1990's, multiple BSD descendants were made Open Source and manage many of the worlds most stable servers. See text/html 2024-04-23T21:37:10+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/zfs_backups?rev=1713908230&do=diff ZFS replication vs rsync First, a disclaimer. While I have decades of experience with rsync, I'm fairly new with zfs, so do take the following with that caveat. There are two main ways I use to back up a ZFS file system; zfs send/recv (aka 'replication') and rsync, with zfs replication being hands down the best way to do it if backing up a zfs file system to another one. NOTE: send/recv is only available if both systems use ZFS. text/html 2025-08-24T08:03:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/zfs_volume_recover?rev=1756022613&do=diff ZFS Recover files from Volume Snapshot If you want to recover an entire volume from a snapshot, the command is simple and fast: zfs rollback dataset/path@snapshot . This will take a snapshot and make it the active dataset (removing all intermediaries, I think). text/html 2025-04-11T22:24:19+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://kb.unixservertech.com/unix/freebsd/zfs?rev=1744410259&do=diff The ZFS File System ZFS is the file system currently owned by Oracle, but available under license to other Unicies. It is an advanced file system with a great advantage to the users. ZFS is tunable; you can turn flags on and off as you like to support a specific purpose for a mount. By default, ZFS has many flags turned on, resulting in a file system that looks slow compared to other systems you may have used. By turning off the options you do not need, however, you can rapidly speed the syste…