Unix Server Tech Knowledge Base - unix:freebsd:system_builds

Basic FreeBSD Installation

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-01-07T01:15:59+00:00

Basic FreeBSD Installation My basic FreeBSD installation is slightly different from the “norm” in that we manually configure the boot drive (usually an SSD) and add some additional packages we need. Here is the “Daily Data” way of building a server. Note that you have to be flexible; modify this as needed.

Setting up CARP

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2019-07-11T01:46:02+00:00

Setting up CARP You need carp set up to tell the nodes which is primary and which is secondary. I'm using vlan50 for my data, so we need to be able to switch between machines. The two machines will have 192.168.209.0/24 in common, configured as follows:

Setting up HAST

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2019-09-15T13:38:02+00:00

Setting up HAST This setup assumes we are building the primary, and will add the secondary at a later time. the machines are named iscsi-0 (primary) and iscsi-1 (secondary). Again, this is non-standard in that we will set up one machine (iscsi-0), let it run for a while, then set up the secondary machine.

Create FreeBSD DOMU on Linux Xen 4

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2018-11-10T04:10:58+00:00

Create FreeBSD DOMU on Linux Xen 4 These are my notes. Modify for your system. I do the initial install over VNC, then set up console (see references for other approaches). * My Xen DOM0 has a bunch of space on /home to put ISO's * I use LVM as a back end for the storage. The VG for that is named vg0.

BSD Networking

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-06-04T03:35:21+00:00

BSD Networking This is actually “advanced networking” as we will be talking about LACP and vlans. LAPC (bonding) Edit /etc/rc.conf and modify as follows. be sure to remove any other network stanzas ifconfig_bce0="up" ifconfig_bce1="up" cloned_interfaces="lagg0" ifconfig_lagg0="laggproto failover laggport bce0 laggport bce1 10.0.0.15/24"

Build NFS Server

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2026-04-14T23:29:28+00:00

Build NFS Server This is a total rewrite since FreeBSD and ZFS have the ability to export nfs directly. You can always not use the sharenfs function in zfs (ie, sharenfs=off) and use the standard way of exporting. ZFS running nfs actually is not as pretty as the old way, but it is very efficient for maintenance.

System Builds

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2016-09-08T05:16:24+00:00

System Builds This is a location where I'll document how I build specific types of systems.

Using SSD's with FreeBSD

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2019-07-15T05:05:12+00:00

Using SSD's with FreeBSD SSD's need a little extra attention on any operating system. These are some tricks I've discovered working with SSD's on FreeBSD. Doing an installation First we need to set up the boot drive. I found a great article at which walks you through it, and I'll summarize here.

ZFS Tuning

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-01-08T22:13:08+00:00

ZFS Tuning This is not a definitive guide. The information on tuning a ZFS file system is very scattered and non-definitive. This is only my working notes as I try to make sense of it. Definitely read the references at the bottom and use them directly.