Cool article on how to answer the mysterious question from pkgdb -F, when it asks about replace a "stale dependency". I usually just let it go and do its work but this can sometimes really break things. This article explains a little about what is going on when it asks.
ONLamp.com: Cleaning Up Ports [Nov. 29, 2001]
Friday, April 9, 2004
Archiving solution
I just got a new machine from my employer (and the payer for my nice fast SDSL connection - inSORS; we do high-end video conferencing software), so I'm changing the roles of the various machines I have. One is a overclocked (clear to 800mhz - woo hoo!) Pentium, that I bought a big, cheap hard drive for, thinking to turn it into a backup server. I was looking at some Windows solutions, but realized that FreeBSD would be a better idea. The Light Dawns over Marblehead, eh?
Anyway, I looked at Bacula, and it looks exactly like what I need. Most of the machines on my network (I have 6 machines here now!) are Windows machines, except for this server (FreeBSD natch) and a dual-booting machine that I use for gaming (WinXP) and Linux development (RedHat 7.4 - part of our video conferencing solution is a server that runs on Linux). So I needed flexible clients, and Bacula does that very well.
It looks like a very complete solution - which of course means some complexity as well. So I'm going to take it slow and give it a whirl. Another thing I'm going to do on the new FreeBSD machine is to install X Windows - like I need another admin headache!
Port description for sysutils/bacula
Here's a nice page from FreeBSDDiary.org on how to set up and run Bacula:
http://www.freebsddiary.org/bacula.php
Anyway, I looked at Bacula, and it looks exactly like what I need. Most of the machines on my network (I have 6 machines here now!) are Windows machines, except for this server (FreeBSD natch) and a dual-booting machine that I use for gaming (WinXP) and Linux development (RedHat 7.4 - part of our video conferencing solution is a server that runs on Linux). So I needed flexible clients, and Bacula does that very well.
It looks like a very complete solution - which of course means some complexity as well. So I'm going to take it slow and give it a whirl. Another thing I'm going to do on the new FreeBSD machine is to install X Windows - like I need another admin headache!
Port description for sysutils/bacula
Here's a nice page from FreeBSDDiary.org on how to set up and run Bacula:
http://www.freebsddiary.org/bacula.php
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
/stand not updated?
Someone asked on FreeBSD-Questions about his /stand folder not getting updated. Ceri Davis replied:
Ceri also mentions /usr/sbin/sysinstall. I'm going to have to look into this, as I've never seen mention of it before. Looking at my 4.9 /stand, I too see that the file dates go back over 2 years ago. Not that I often use stuff from in there, but I'm going to do a little digging to see what is going on here.
Also, on an unrelated note, sorry if you've been seeing SPAM via comments on my blog. I was out of town over the weekend and someone (or should I say something, as they are among the lowest life forms) posted a bunch of spam comments. I block the IP when I see it, but I didn't catch this one until there were 4 posts.
Correct. The scripts don't automatically do it. You can do it by hand
on RELENG_4 by making install in src/release/sysinstall and then linking
everything else in /stand to /stand/sysinstall.
Ceri also mentions /usr/sbin/sysinstall. I'm going to have to look into this, as I've never seen mention of it before. Looking at my 4.9 /stand, I too see that the file dates go back over 2 years ago. Not that I often use stuff from in there, but I'm going to do a little digging to see what is going on here.
Also, on an unrelated note, sorry if you've been seeing SPAM via comments on my blog. I was out of town over the weekend and someone (or should I say something, as they are among the lowest life forms) posted a bunch of spam comments. I block the IP when I see it, but I didn't catch this one until there were 4 posts.
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Allowing users to mount CDs
Excellent, if undocumented (as are many of them) sysctl.conf variable:
As Malcolm Kay mentions in his email to freebsd-questions:
It can be tough to find docs on sysctl variables. I have a short entry in my blog (here) that points to a text page that documents some of them, but not all, and not vfs.usermount. Looks like there is an attempt to document more of these variables :
RFC: Automated process for documenting tunables/variables.
Let's hope it gets going! It is for exactly this sort of mysterious command/variable/setting that I started this blog. I'd never remember these things, so I just jot them down in my blog, and I can search later for them.
# sysctl vfs.usermount=1
As Malcolm Kay mentions in his email to freebsd-questions:
allows users to mount and then unmount drives provided other things
are in order. You can make this happen during the normal boot by addingvfs.usermount=1
to /etc/ sysctl.conf
It can be tough to find docs on sysctl variables. I have a short entry in my blog (here) that points to a text page that documents some of them, but not all, and not vfs.usermount. Looks like there is an attempt to document more of these variables :
RFC: Automated process for documenting tunables/variables.
Let's hope it gets going! It is for exactly this sort of mysterious command/variable/setting that I started this blog. I'd never remember these things, so I just jot them down in my blog, and I can search later for them.
DaemonNews.org
Cool site that gives you lots of coverage of all the news that is fit to print in the *BSD world. Wish it had an RSS feed, though - I'm addicted to RSS! It is second only to newsreaders as far as ease of getting information. Don't forget, Daemon Dancing has an RSS feed, thanks to the wonderful Movable Type package.
Daemon News
Daemon News
Keeping up with freebsd-questions
As you may know, the freebsd-questions mailing list is a veritable flood of information. It has an amazingly good "signal to noise" ratio; by that I mean there isn't much off-topic chatter, and most questions are answered in an accurate and timely fashion. However, it is a flood - several hundred posts a day, usually.
I don't like getting mailing lists in digest format. It is too hard to follow individual threads and too hard to form replies, etc. I don't like any web-based bulletin board system yet. Some are barely usable, but most are just too painful to work with. My favorite way to get information remains good old fashioned newsgroups. There are excellent newsreaders out there, that let you do things like ignore threads and obnoxious posters, watch particular threads, etc. I use the newsreader that comes with Mozilla, because I find that the way I use newsreaders and emailers is so much the same, I don't want to use two separate programs to do it. Another good one is the gnus package in Emacs, my favorite editor. But I've never quite gotten comfortable with it, so I've stuck with Netscape/Mozilla.
Anyway, I was glad to come across Gmane.org. It provides a mail <-> newsreader gateway, so you can read mailing lists via your newsreader. It makes keeping up with the heavy volume of the freebsd-questions list much easier. Check it out for lots of other, mostly technical, mailing lists too.
Gmane -- Mail To News And Back Again
I don't like getting mailing lists in digest format. It is too hard to follow individual threads and too hard to form replies, etc. I don't like any web-based bulletin board system yet. Some are barely usable, but most are just too painful to work with. My favorite way to get information remains good old fashioned newsgroups. There are excellent newsreaders out there, that let you do things like ignore threads and obnoxious posters, watch particular threads, etc. I use the newsreader that comes with Mozilla, because I find that the way I use newsreaders and emailers is so much the same, I don't want to use two separate programs to do it. Another good one is the gnus package in Emacs, my favorite editor. But I've never quite gotten comfortable with it, so I've stuck with Netscape/Mozilla.
Anyway, I was glad to come across Gmane.org. It provides a mail <-> newsreader gateway, so you can read mailing lists via your newsreader. It makes keeping up with the heavy volume of the freebsd-questions list much easier. Check it out for lots of other, mostly technical, mailing lists too.
Gmane -- Mail To News And Back Again
How to mount a floppy
If you want help on how to mount a removable disk, this is the spot to start - the entry in the FreeBSD FAQ :
Disks, Filesystems, and Boot Loaders : I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?
Disks, Filesystems, and Boot Loaders : I have a new removable drive, how do I use it?
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