Interesting mini-HOWTO on dual bootingFreeBSD and Linux. The best part is talking about how to share the swap partition. As an inveterate OS dilettante, this is some good stuff to me.
The Linux FreeBSD mini-HOWTO
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Monday, July 19, 2004
More on root passwords
We're on a root password roll!
You may get the following interesting "error" message if you do the "boot into single user to change root password" process:
Well, FreeBSD isn't kidding. Basically, it needs to "seed" the random number generator, and perhaps you just haven't done enough to do that. It can use a combination of what you type and the nearly perfectly random times between keys to jumpstart the random number generator. So you can do a few things before running passwd to change root's password:
You may get the following interesting "error" message if you do the "boot into single user to change root password" process:
entropy device blocking. Dance fandago on keyboard to unlock
Well, FreeBSD isn't kidding. Basically, it needs to "seed" the random number generator, and perhaps you just haven't done enough to do that. It can use a combination of what you type and the nearly perfectly random times between keys to jumpstart the random number generator. So you can do a few things before running passwd to change root's password:
- Just type away for a bit, randomly. You can even redirect it to /dev/null:
# cat >/dev/null
Just type stuff away, and when you're done, hit ctrl-d to stop the cat'ing to /dev/null. Then re-run passwd. - As Matthew Seaman pointed on on the -questions list, you can just run vipw and delete the stuff between the second and third ':', leaving a blank password. Then you can reboot normally, login to root immediately(!!) and run passwd. The generator will be nice and warmed up.
- I guess on FreeBSD 5.x, which I haven't tried to install yet, you can run:
# /etc/rc.d/preseedrandom
Which, in fact, preseeds the random number generator.
Asking for password in single user
If you boot into single user (by hitting space duing the boot process, while the bar is spinning, then typing:
), you are dropped into FreeBSD as root, with all its privileges. This might not be a Good Thing if the system console is in an unsafe spot. You can have FreeBSD ask for a password by editing the /etc/ttys file. Change this line:
to this:
Now you'll get asked for the root password before single user mode kicks in. Of course, I'm not sure if there is any sort of workaround now, if you forget your root password. The way to fix that in the past is to change it in single user mode (see this for my note on it). You might have to re-install if you forget it now!
ok boot -s
), you are dropped into FreeBSD as root, with all its privileges. This might not be a Good Thing if the system console is in an unsafe spot. You can have FreeBSD ask for a password by editing the /etc/ttys file. Change this line:
console none unknown off secure
to this:
console none unknown off insecure
Now you'll get asked for the root password before single user mode kicks in. Of course, I'm not sure if there is any sort of workaround now, if you forget your root password. The way to fix that in the past is to change it in single user mode (see this for my note on it). You might have to re-install if you forget it now!
Friday, July 16, 2004
Another installation link
This one from the invaluable FreeBSD Diary; it is his process of installing 5.2.1 on a laptop. I'm busily installing it on my "slow" machine, which I'm going to use as a backup server, so these notes should help.
The FreeBSD Diary -- Installing FreeBSD on an IBM ThinkPad T41
The FreeBSD Diary -- Installing FreeBSD on an IBM ThinkPad T41
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Comment Spam
Okay, I finally had to do it. Not like my site is a magnet for comment spam, but enough of it happens every day that I need to take a little more pro-active approach. Luckily, there is a Movable Type plugin that "washes" comments, called MT-Blacklist. I think in MT 3.0 they have a setting to only allow comments by "registered" users, which might help. But until then, I'll use this. Please let me know if your comment get accidently rejected.
MT-Blacklist - A Movable Type Anti-spam Plugin
MT-Blacklist - A Movable Type Anti-spam Plugin
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Net News
Well, as a new project, I've decided to try to set up a news server. Mind you, I'm not going to be doing a "real" one, where I go and get some of the 10,000+ newsgroups found on a "real" news server. I just want to set up a private news server on the TheWargamer.com web site I run on my server. Not a big deal, right?
Well, news servers are typical of the undocumented applications available for Unixen servers. The two popular free ones are:
I set up INN, flailed about a bit, help by random web sites like Elena's UNIX Page and INN 2.4 Documentation and INN for the Impatient, but it is a struggle to figure out what all the options mean. Alot of the talk is for heavy-iron servers, dealing with the multi-gigabyte newsfeeds of today's Usenet News. But I'm not doing that - I'll be serving up a few private newsgroups with very low traffic, and figuring out which parts of the documentation apply to my setup and my version of INN has been slow going.
The, for some reason, I decided to try the Diablo server. It seemed more "modern" somehow, and maybe even better documented. Well, it might be the former, but it certainly isn't the latter. As I wasn't very careful when I made the port, I now have two competing news servers installed. What a dummy:-)
All I can say is Thank Goodness for the FreeBSD ports system. It at least gets things installed an running with a minimal amount of pain. I probably could never have done it by hand! So this is an ongoing project and I'll try to keep notes and let you know how it goes.
Ports used:
Well, news servers are typical of the undocumented applications available for Unixen servers. The two popular free ones are:
I set up INN, flailed about a bit, help by random web sites like Elena's UNIX Page and INN 2.4 Documentation and INN for the Impatient, but it is a struggle to figure out what all the options mean. Alot of the talk is for heavy-iron servers, dealing with the multi-gigabyte newsfeeds of today's Usenet News. But I'm not doing that - I'll be serving up a few private newsgroups with very low traffic, and figuring out which parts of the documentation apply to my setup and my version of INN has been slow going.
The, for some reason, I decided to try the Diablo server. It seemed more "modern" somehow, and maybe even better documented. Well, it might be the former, but it certainly isn't the latter. As I wasn't very careful when I made the port, I now have two competing news servers installed. What a dummy:-)
All I can say is Thank Goodness for the FreeBSD ports system. It at least gets things installed an running with a minimal amount of pain. I probably could never have done it by hand! So this is an ongoing project and I'll try to keep notes and let you know how it goes.
Ports used:
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