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::bsd

This is the *bsd section of allroy.de. It contains some scripts I use to upgrade my FreeBSD box and to learn about the visitors of my home server. More content about my FreeBSD server/firewall, using dsl with FreeBSD and upgrading Apache2 will be added.

Upgrading FreeBSD

So you have installed FreeBSD, but after a while some bug crept up, a serious security issue arose, etc. You need to upgrade your system. You could do it according to the (hand)book, but there's an easier way, although it is based on some parts of the handbook.

First you need to install some ports that are not part of the base system. Just type pkg_add -rv cvsup-without-gui after you su'd to root. This command fetches the port from one of the ftp servers (this is the 'r' switch) and installs it. I know that in the Handbook it tells you to install cvsupit, instead of cvs-without-gui, but if you run a box without X you don't want to install a lot of libraries for XFree just to use cvsup. After the installation download the supfile from the FreeBSD server. Don't forget to modify it according to your needs. At least change the name of the server to one that's close to you, I chose one in Germany. Ok, this was fairly standard. I use a couple of little scripts to help me to stay current.

my_cvsup2

This is a bash script I use to check for upgrades and mail me the results. Sometimes I log in my box via ssh and I forget to check what has to be done. I want to add some colors to the output on the console to make it easier to see what has to be done or what went wrong.

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
# Now using bash instead of the shell 31/12/02

File=/root/update
Address=me@domain.net

echo "using cvsup..."
cvsup -g -L 2 /usr/local/etc/cvsup/ports-supfile 
echo "done with cvsup..."
echo "using pkg_version -c"
pkg_version -c > $File 
echo "going to open $File"
if test -f $File 
        then mail $Address < $File # mail waits....
        vi $File 
        else echo "$File does not exist!"
fi

Using (t-)dsl with FreeBSD

When I first set up my FreeBSD 4.5 router I used mainly these instructions (http://www.ruhr.de/home/nathan/FreeBSD/tdsl-freebsd.html (in German) how to use t-online's t-dsl with FreeBSD. It should be usable for other providers' adsl modems as well as long as they use pppoe (ppp over ethernet). As I haven't had the time to write my little article, you might find this page useful, although it covers dsl and FreeBSD 5.0: http://www.dis.de/~smisch/bsd/t-dsl/.

Upgrading Apache2

When you upgrade something that depends on Apache (e. g. mod_php4) do not forget to set the variable WITH_APACHE2 to YES in the Makefile. Even phpmyadmin needs this.