A: Prior to release 3.1, you only needed one floppy image to install FreeBSD, namely floppies/boot.flp. However, since release 3.1 the Project has added base support for a wide variety of hardware which needed more space, and thus for 3.x and 4.x we now use two floppy images, namely floppies/kernel.flp and floppies/mfsroot.flp. These images need to be copied onto floppies by tools like fdimage or dd(1).

If you need to download the distributions yourself (for a DOS filesystem install, for instance), below are some recommendations for distributions to grab:

• bin/

• manpages/

• compat*/

• doc/

• src/ssys.*

Full instructions on this procedure and a little bit more about installation issues in general can be found in the Handbook entry on installing FreeBSD.

A: A 3.5 inch (1.44MB) floppy can accomodate 1474560 bytes of data. The boot image is exactly 1474560 bytes in size.

Common mistakes when preparing the boot floppy are:

• Not downloading the floppy image in binary mode when using FTP.

  Some FTP clients default their transfer mode to ascii and attempt to change any end-of-line characters received to match the conventions used by the client's system. This will almost invariably corrupt the boot image. Check the size of the downloaded boot image: if it is not exactly that on the server, then the download process is suspect.

  To workaround: type binary at the FTP command prompt after getting connected to the server and before starting the download of the image.

• Using the DOS copy command (or equivalent GUI tool) to transfer the boot image to floppy.

  Programs like copy will not work as the boot image has been created to be booted into directly. The image has the complete content of the floppy, track for track, and is not meant to be placed on the floppy as a regular file. You have to transfer it to the floppy ``raw'', using the low-level tools (e.g. fdimage or rawrite) described in the installation guide to FreeBSD.

A: Installation instructions can be found in the Handbook entry on installing FreeBSD.

A: You'll need a 386 or better PC, with 5 MB or more of RAM and at least 60 MB of hard disk space. It can run with a low end MDA graphics card but to run X11R6, a VGA or better video card is needed.

See also the section on Chapter 2

A: FreeBSD 2.1.7 was the last version of FreeBSD that could be installed on a 4MB system. Newer versions of FreeBSD, like 2.2, need at least 5MB to install on a new system.

All versions of FreeBSD, including 3.0, will run in 4MB of RAM, they just can't run the installation program in 4MB. You can add extra memory for the install process, if you like, and then after the system is up and running, go back to 4MB. Or you could always just swap your disk into a system which has >4MB, install onto it and then swap it back.

There are also situations in which FreeBSD 2.1.7 will not install in 4 MB. To be exact: it does not install with 640 kB base + 3 MB extended memory. If your motherboard can remap some of the ``lost'' memory out of the 640kB to 1MB region, then you may still be able to get FreeBSD 2.1.7 up.

Try to go into your BIOS setup and look for a ``remap'' option. Enable it. You may also have to disable ROM shadowing.

It may be easier to get 4 more MB just for the install. Build a custom kernel with only the options you need and then get the 4MB out again.

You may also install 2.0.5 and then upgrade your system to 2.1.7 with the ``upgrade'' option of the 2.1.7 installation program.

After the installation, if you build a custom kernel, it will run in 4 MB. Someone has even succeeded in booting with 2 MB (the system was almost unusable though :-))

A: Currently there's no way to just make a custom install floppy. You have to cut a whole new release, which will include your install floppy. There's some code in /usr/src/release/floppies/Makefile that's supposed to let you just make those floppies, but it's not really gelled yet.

To make a custom release, follow the instructions here.

A: Have a look at The multi-OS page.

A: Install Windows 95/98 first, after that FreeBSD. FreeBSD's boot manager will then manage to boot Win95/98 and FreeBSD. If you install Windows 95/98 second, it will boorishly overwrite your boot manager without even asking. If that happens, see the next section.

A: You can reinstall the boot manager FreeBSD comes with in one of three ways:

• Running DOS, go into the tools/ directory of your FreeBSD distribution and look for bootinst.exe. You run it like so:

      ...\TOOLS> bootinst.exe boot.bin
  

  and the boot manager will be reinstalled.

• Boot the FreeBSD boot floppy again and go to the Custom installation menu item. Choose Partition. Select the drive which used to contain your boot manager (likely the first one) and when you come to the partition editor for it, as the very first thing (e.g. do not make any changes) select (W)rite. This will ask for confirmation, say yes, and when you get the Boot Manager selection prompt, be sure to select Boot Manager. This will re-write the boot manager to disk. Now quit out of the installation menu and reboot off the hard disk as normal.

• Boot the FreeBSD boot floppy (or CD-ROM) and choose the ``Fixit'' menu item. Select either the Fixit floppy or CD-ROM #2 (the ``live'' file system option) as appropriate and enter the fixit shell. Then execute the following command:

      Fixit# fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 bootdevice
  

  substituting bootdevice for your real boot device such as ad0 (first IDE disk), ad4 (first IDE disk on auxiliary controller), da0 (first SCSI disk), etc.

A: Prior to 3.0, FreeBSD included a utility known as bad144, which automatically remapped bad blocks. Because modern IDE drives perform this function themselves, bad144 has been removed from the FreeBSD source tree. If you wish to install FreeBSD 3.0 or later, we strongly suggest you purchase a newer disk drive. If you do not wish to do this, you must run FreeBSD 2.x.

If you are seeing bad block errors with a modern IDE drive, chances are the drive is going to die very soon (the drive's internal remapping functions are no longer sufficient to fix the bad blocks, which means the disk is heavily corrupted); we suggest you by a new hard drive.

If you have a SCSI drive with bad blocks, see this answer.

A: If you're seeing things like the machine grinding to a halt or spontaneously rebooting when you try to boot the install floppy, here are three questions to ask yourself:-

1. Did you use a new, freshly-formatted, error-free floppy (preferably a brand-new one straight out of the box, as opposed to the magazine coverdisk that's been lying under the bed for the last three years)?

2. Did you download the floppy image in binary (or image) mode? (don't be embarrassed, even the best of us have accidentally downloaded a binary file in ASCII mode at least once!)

3. If you're using Windows95 or Win98 did you run fdimage or rawrite in pure DOS mode? These OS's can interfere with programs that write directly to hardware, which the disk creation program does; even running it inside a DOS shell in the GUI can cause this problem.

There have also been reports of Netscape causing problems when downloading the boot floppy, so it's probably best to use a different FTP client if you can.

A: The usual cause of this problem is a mis-configured CD-ROM drive. Many PCs now ship with the CD-ROM as the slave device on the secondary IDE controller, with no master device on that controller. This is illegal according to the ATAPI specification, but Windows plays fast and loose with the specification, and the BIOS ignores it when booting. This is why the BIOS was able to see the CD-ROM to boot from it, but why FreeBSD can not see it to complete the install.

Reconfigure your system so that the CD-ROM is either the master device on the IDE controller it is attached to, or make sure that it is the slave on an IDE controller that also has a master device.

A: If you are installing 2.1.7R from tape, you must create the tape using a tar blocksize of 10 (5120 bytes). The default tar blocksize is 20 (10240 bytes), and tapes created using this default size cannot be used to install 2.1.7R; with these tapes, you will get an error that complains about the record size being too big.

A: Get a laplink cable. Make sure both computer have a kernel with lpt driver support.

    # dmesg | grep lp
    lpt0 at 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa
    lpt0: Interrupt-driven
    lp0: TCP/IP capable interface

Plug in the laplink cable into the parallel interface.

Configure the network interface parameters for lp0 on both sites as root. For example, if you want connect the host max with moritz

                     max <-----> moritz
    IP Address    10.0.0.1      10.0.0.2

on max start

    # ifconfig lp0 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2

on moritz start

    # ifconfig lp0 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1

Thats all! Please read also the manpages lp(4) and lpt(4) .

You should also add the hosts to /etc/hosts.

    127.0.0.1               localhost.my.domain localhost
    10.0.0.1                max.my.domain max
    10.0.0.2                moritz.my.domain

To check if it works do:

on max:

    # ifconfig lp0
    lp0: flags=8851<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
            inet 10.0.0.1 --> 10.0.0.2 netmask 0xff000000
    # netstat -r
    Routing tables
    
    Internet:
    Destination        Gateway          Flags     Refs     Use      Netif Expire
    moritz             max              UH          4   127592       lp0
    # ping -c 4 moritz
    PING moritz (10.0.0.2): 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=2.774 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=2.530 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=2.556 ms
    64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=2.714 ms
    
    --- moritz ping statistics ---
    4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.530/2.643/2.774/0.103 ms

A: Connect the two computers using a Laplink parallel cable to use this feature:

See also this note on the Mobile Computing page.

A: (By the ``geometry'' of a disk, we mean the number of cylinders, heads and sectors/track on a disk - I'll refer to this as C/H/S for convenience. This is how the PC's BIOS works out which area on a disk to read/write from).

This seems to cause a lot of confusion for some reason. First of all, the physical geometry of a SCSI drive is totally irrelevant, as FreeBSD works in term of disk blocks. In fact, there is no such thing as the physical geometry, as the sector density varies across the disk - what manufacturers claim is the quote physical geometry is usually the geometry that they've worked out results in the least wasted space. For IDE disks, FreeBSD does work in terms of C/H/S, but all modern drives will convert this into block references internally as well.

All that matters is the logical geometry - the answer that the BIOS gets when it asks ``what is your geometry?'' and then uses to access the disk. As FreeBSD uses the BIOS when booting, it's very important to get this right. In particular, if you have more than one operating system on a disk, they must all agree on the geometry, otherwise you will have serious problems booting!

For SCSI disks, the geometry to use depends on whether extended translation support is turned on in your controller (this is often referred to as ``support for DOS disks >1GB'' or something similar). If it's turned off, then use N cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track, where N is the capacity of the disk in MB. For example, a 2GB disk should pretend to have 2048 cylinders, 64 heads and 32 sectors/track.

If it is turned on (it's often supplied this way to get around certain limitations in MSDOS) and the disk capacity is more than 1GB, use M cylinders, 63 sectors per track (*not* 64), and 255 heads, where 'M' is the disk capacity in MB divided by 7.844238 (!). So our example 2GB drive would have 261 cylinders, 63 sectors per track and 255 heads.

If you are not sure about this, or FreeBSD fails to detect the geometry correctly during installation, the simplest way around this is usually to create a small DOS partition on the disk. The correct geometry should then be detected (and you can always remove the DOS partition in the partition editor if you don't want to keep it, or leave it around for programming network cards and the like).

Alternatively, there is a freely available utility distributed with FreeBSD called pfdisk.exe (located in the tools subdirectory on the FreeBSD CDROM or on the various FreeBSD ftp sites) which can be used to work out what geometry the other operating systems on the disk are using. You can then enter this geometry in the partition editor.

A: Yes. You must make sure that your root partition is below 1024 cylinders so the BIOS can boot the kernel from it. (Note that this is a limitation in the PC's BIOS, not FreeBSD).

For a SCSI drive, this will normally imply that the root partition will be in the first 1024MB (or in the first 4096MB if extended translation is turned on - see previous question). For IDE, the corresponding figure is 504MB.

A: FreeBSD recognizes the Ontrack Disk Manager and makes allowances for it. Other disk managers are not supported.

If you just want to use the disk with FreeBSD you don't need a disk manager. Just configure the disk for as much space as the BIOS can deal with (usually 504 megabytes), and FreeBSD should figure out how much space you really have. If you're using an old disk with an MFM controller, you may need to explicitly tell FreeBSD how many cylinders to use.

If you want to use the disk with FreeBSD and another operating system, you may be able to do without a disk manager: just make sure the the FreeBSD boot partition and the slice for the other operating system are in the first 1024 cylinders. If you're reasonably careful, a 20 megabyte boot partition should be plenty.

A: This is classically a case of FreeBSD and DOS or some other OS conflicting over their ideas of disk geometry. You will have to reinstall FreeBSD, but obeying the instructions given above will almost always get you going.

A: This is another symptom of the problem described in the preceding question. Your BIOS geometry and FreeBSD geometry settings do not agree! If your controller or BIOS supports cylinder translation (often marked as >1GB drive support), try toggling its setting and reinstalling FreeBSD.

A: In general, no. However, we would strongly recommend that you install, at a minimum, the base source kit, which includes several of the files mentioned here, and the sys (kernel) source kit, which includes sources for the kernel. There is nothing in the system which requires the presence of the sources to operate, however, except for the kernel-configuration program config(8). With the exception of the kernel sources, our build structure is set up so that you can read-only mount the sources from elsewhere via NFS and still be able to make new binaries. (Because of the kernel-source restriction, we recommend that you not mount this on /usr/src directly, but rather in some other location with appropriate symbolic links to duplicate the top-level structure of the source tree.)

Having the sources on-line and knowing how to build a system with them will make it much easier for you to upgrade to future releases of FreeBSD.

To actually select a subset of the sources, use the Custom menu item when you are in the Distributions menu of the system installation tool.

A: Building a new kernel was originally pretty much a required step in a FreeBSD installation, but more recent releases have benefited from the introduction of a much friendlier kernel configuration tool. When at the FreeBSD boot prompt (boot:), use the -c flag and you will be dropped into a visual configuration screen which allows you to configure the kernel's settings for most common ISA cards.

It's still recommended that you eventually build a new kernel containing just the drivers that you need, just to save a bit of RAM, but it's no longer a strict requirement for most systems.

A: The default password format on FreeBSD is to use MD5-based passwords. These are believed to be more secure than the traditional UNIX password format, which used a scheme based on the DES algorithm. DES passwords are still available if you need to share your password file with legacy operating systems which still use the less secure password format (they are available if you choose to install the ``crypto'' distribution in sysinstall, or by installing the crypto sources if building from source). Which password format to use for new passwords is controlled by the ``passwd_format'' login capability in /etc/login.conf, which takes values of either ``des'' (if available) or ``md5''. See the login.conf(5) manpage for more information about login capabilities.

A: If you have a IDE Zip or Jaz drive installed, remove it and try again. The boot floppy can get confused by the drives. After the system is installed you can reconnect the drive. Hopefully this will be fixed in a later release.

A: This error comes from confusion between the boot block's and the kernel's understanding of the disk devices. The error usually manifests on two-disk IDE systems, with the hard disks arranged as the master or single device on separate IDE controllers, with FreeBSD installed on the secondary IDE controller. The boot blocks think the system is installed on wd1 (the second BIOS disk) while the kernel assigns the first disk on the secondary controller device wd2. After the device probing, the kernel tries to mount what the boot blocks think is the boot disk, wd1, while it is really wd2, and fails.

To fix the problem, do one of the following:

1. For FreeBSD 3.3 and later, reboot the system and hit Enter at the Booting kernel in 10 seconds; hit [Enter] to interrupt prompt. This will drop you into the boot loader.

   Then type set root_disk_unit="disk_number" . disk_number will be 0 if FreeBSD is installed on the master drive on the first IDE controller, 1 if it is installed on the slave on the first IDE controller, 2 if it is installed on the master of the second IDE controller, and 3 if it is installed on the slave of the second IDE controller.

   Then type boot, and your system should boot correctly.

   To make this change permanent (ie so you don't have to do this everytime you reboot or turn on your FreeBSD machine), put the line root_disk_unit="disk_number" in /boot/loader.conf.local .

2. If using FreeBSD 3.2 or earlier, at the Boot: prompt, enter 1:wd(2,a)kernel and press Enter. If the system starts, then run the command echo "1:wd(2,a)kernel" > /boot.config to make it the default boot string.

3. Move the FreeBSD disk onto the primary IDE controller, so the hard disks are consecutive.

4. Rebuild your kernel, modify the wd configuration lines to read:

       controller      wdc0    at isa? port "IO_WD1" bio irq 14 vector wdintr
       disk            wd0     at wdc0 drive 0
       # disk            wd1     at wdc0 drive 1 # comment out this line
       
       controller      wdc1    at isa? port "IO_WD2" bio irq 15 vector wdintr
       disk            wd1     at wdc1 drive 0 # change from wd2 to wd1
       disk            wd2     at wdc1 drive 1 # change from wd3 to wd2
   

   Install the new kernel. If you moved your disks and wish to restore the previous configuration, replace the disks in the desired configuration and reboot. Your system should boot successfully.

A: For memory, the limit is 4 gigabytes. This configuration has been tested, see wcarchive's configuration for more details. If you plan to install this much memory into a machine, you need to be careful. You'll probably want to use ECC memory and to reduce capacitive loading use 9 chip memory modules vice 18 chip memory modules.

A: For ffs filesystems, the maximum theoretical limit is 8 terabytes (2G blocks), or 16TB for the default block size of 8K. In practice, there is a soft limit of 1 terabyte, but with modifications filesystems with 4 terabytes are possible (and exist).

The maximum size of a single ffs file is approximately 1G blocks (4TB) if the block size is 4K.

When the fs block size is 4K, triple indirect blocks work and everything should be limited by the maximum fs block number that can be represented using triple indirect blocks (approx. 1K^3 + 1K^2 + 1K), but everything is limited by a (wrong) limit of 1G-1 on fs block numbers. The limit on fs block numbers should be 2G-1. There are some bugs for fs block numbers near 2G-1, but such block numbers are unreachable when the fs block size is 4K.

For block sizes of 8K and larger, everything should be limited by the 2G-1 limit on fs block numbers, but is actually limited by the 1G-1 limit on fs block numbers, except under -STABLE triple indirect blocks are unreachable, so the limit is the maxiumum fs block number that can be represented using double indirect blocks (approx. (blocksize/4)^2 + (blocksize/4)), and under -CURRENT exceeding this limit may cause problems. Using the correct limit of 2G-1 blocks does cause problems.

A: I keep several virtual ones on floppies :-). The maxiumum file size is not closely related to the maximum disk size. The maximum disk size is 1TB. It is a feature that the file size can be larger than the disk size.

The following example creates a file of size 8T-1 using a whole 32K of disk space (3 indirect blocks and 1 data block) on a small root partition. The dd command requires a dd that works with large files.

    % cat foo
    df .
    dd if=/dev/zero of=z bs=1 seek=`echo 2^43 - 2 | bc` count=1
    ls -l z
    du z
    df .
    % sh foo
    Filesystem  1024-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
    /dev/da0a         64479    27702    31619    47%    /
    1+0 records in
    1+0 records out
    1 bytes transferred in 0.000187 secs (5346 bytes/sec)
    -rw-r--r--  1 bde  bin  8796093022207 Sep  7 16:04 z
    32  z
    Filesystem  1024-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
    /dev/da0a         64479    27734    31587    47%    /

Bruce Evans, September 1998

A: You can boot by specifying the kernel directly at the second stage, pressing any key when the | shows up before loader is started. More specifically, you have upgraded the source for your kernel, and installed a new kernel builtin from them without making world. This is not supported. Make world.

A: We strongly recommend that you use binary snapshots to do this. 4-STABLE snapshots are available at releng4.FreeBSD.org.

If you wish to upgrade using source, please see the FreeBSD Handbook for more information.

Upgrading via source is never recommended for new users, and upgading from 3.X -> 4.X is even less so; make sure you have read the instructions carefully before attempting to upgrade via source this!

A: FreeBSD supports EIDE and SCSI drives (with a compatible controller; see the next section), and all drives using the original ``Western Digital'' interface (MFM, RLL, ESDI, and of course IDE). A few ESDI controllers that use proprietary interfaces may not work: stick to WD1002/3/6/7 interfaces and clones.

A: See the complete list in the Handbook.

A: Any SCSI drive connected to a supported controller is supported.

The following proprietary CD-ROM interfaces are also supported:

• Mitsumi LU002 (8bit), LU005 (16bit) and FX001D (16bit 2x Speed).

• Sony CDU 31/33A

• Sound Blaster Non-SCSI CD-ROM

• Matsushita/Panasonic CD-ROM

• ATAPI compatible IDE CD-ROMs

All non-SCSI cards are known to be extremely slow compared to SCSI drives, and some ATAPI CDROMs may not work.

As of 2.2 the FreeBSD CDROM from Walnut Creek supports booting directly from the CD.

A: FreeBSD supports the SCSI ZIP drive out of the box, of course. The ZIP drive can only be set to run at SCSI target IDs 5 or 6, but if your SCSI host adapter's BIOS supports it you can even boot from it. I don't know which host adapters let you boot from targets other than 0 or 1... look at your docs (and let me know if it works out for you).

ATAPI (IDE) Zip drives are supported in FreeBSD 2.2.6 and later releases.

FreeBSD has contained support for Parallel Port Zip Drives since version 3.0. If you are using a sufficiently up to date version, then you should check that your kernel contains the scbus0, da0, ppbus0, and vp0 drivers (the GENERIC kernel contains everything except vp0). With all these drivers present, the Parallel Port drive should be available as /dev/da0s4. Disks can be mounted using mount /dev/da0s4 /mnt OR (for dos disks) mount_msdos /dev/da0s4 /mnt as appropriate.

Also check out this note on removable drives, and this note on ``formatting''.

A: Apart from the IDE version of the EZ drive, these are all SCSI devices, so the should all look like SCSI disks to FreeBSD, and the IDE EZ should look like an IDE drive.

I'm not sure how well FreeBSD supports changing the media out while running. You will of course need to dismount the drive before swapping media, and make sure that any external units are powered on when you boot the system so FreeBSD can see them.

See this note on ``formatting''.

A: There is a list of these in the Miscellaneous devices section of the handbook.

Some unnamed clone cards have also been known to work, especially those that claim to be AST compatible.

Check the sio man page to get more information on configuring such cards.

A: USB device support was added to FreeBSD 3.1. However, it is still in preliminary state and may not always work as of version 3.2. If you want to experiment with the USB keyboard support, follow the procedure described below.

1. Use FreeBSD 3.2 or later.

2. Add the following lines to your kernel configuration file, and rebuild the kernel.

       device  uhci
       device  ohci
       device  usb
       device  ukbd
       options KBD_INSTALL_CDEV
   

   In versions of FreeBSD before 4.0, use this instead:

       controller      uhci0
       controller      ohci0
       controller      usb0
       controller      ukbd0
       options         KBD_INSTALL_CDEV
   

3. Go to the /dev directory and create device nodes as follows:

       # cd /dev
       # ./MAKEDEV kbd0 kbd1
   

4. Edit /etc/rc.conf and add the following lines:

       usbd_enable="YES"
       usbd_flags=""
   

After the system is rebooted, the AT keyboard becomes /dev/kbd0 and the USB keyboard becomes /dev/kbd1, if both are connected to the system. If there is the USB keyboard only, it will be /dev/ukbd0.

If you want to use the USB keyboard in the console, you have to explicitly tell the console driver to use the existence of the USB keyboard. This can be done by running the following command as a part of system initialization.

    # kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd1 < /dev/ttyv0 > /dev/null

Note that if the USB keyboard is the only keyboard, it is accessed as /dev/kbd0, thus, the command should look like:

    # kbdcontrol -k /dev/kbd0 < /dev/ttyv0 > /dev/null

/etc/rc.i386 is a good place to add the above command.

Once this is done, the USB keyboard should work in the X environment as well without any special settings.

Hot-plugging and unplugging of the USB keyboard may not work quite right yet. It is a good idea to connect the keyboard before you start the system and leave it connected until the system is shutdown to avoid troubles.

See the ukbd(4) man page for more information.

A: FreeBSD supports the bus mouse and the InPort bus mouse from such manufactures as Microsoft, Logitech and ATI. The bus device driver is compiled in the GENERIC kernel by default in FreeBSD versions 2.X, but not included in version 3.0 or later. If you are building a custom kernel with the bus mouse driver, make sure to add the following line to the kernel config file

In FreeBSD 3.0 or before, add:

    device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5 vector mseintr

In FreeBSD 3.X, the line should be:

    device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c tty irq5

And in FreeBSD 4.X and later, the line should read:

    device mse0 at isa? port 0x23c irq5

Bus mice usually comes with dedicated interface cards. These cards may allow you to set the port address and the IRQ number other than shown above. Refer to the manual of your mouse and the mse(4) man page for more information.

A: If you're running a post-2.2.5 version of FreeBSD, the necessary driver, psm, is included and enabled in the kernel. The kernel should detect your PS/2 mouse at boot time.

If you're running a previous but relatively recent version of FreeBSD (2.1.x or better) then you can simply enable it in the kernel configuration menu at installation time, otherwise later with -c at the boot: prompt. It is disabled by default, so you will need to enable it explicitly.

If you're running an older version of FreeBSD then you'll have to add the following lines to your kernel configuration file and compile a new kernel.

In FreeBSD 3.0 or earlier, the line should be:

    device psm0 at isa? port "IO_KBD" conflicts tty irq 12 vector psmintr

In FreeBSD 3.1 or later, the line should be:

    device psm0 at isa? tty irq 12

In FreeBSD 4.0 or later, the line should be:

    device psm0 at atkbdc? irq 12

See the Handbook entry on configuring the kernel if you've no experience with building kernels.

Once you have a kernel detecting psm0 correctly at boot time, make sure that an entry for psm0 exists in /dev. You can do this by typing:

    # cd /dev; sh MAKEDEV psm0

when logged in as root.

A: If you are using the default console driver, syscons, you can use a mouse pointer in text consoles to cut & paste text. Run the mouse daemon, moused, and turn on the mouse pointer in the virtual console:

    # moused -p /dev/xxxx -t yyyy
    # vidcontrol -m on

Where xxxx is the mouse device name and yyyy is a protocol type for the mouse. See the moused(8) man page for supported protocol types.

You may wish to run the mouse daemon automatically when the system starts. In version 2.2.1, set the following variables in /etc/sysconfig.

    mousedtype="yyyy"
    mousedport="xxxx"
    mousedflags=""

In versions 2.2.2 to 3.0, set the following variables in /etc/rc.conf.

    moused_type="yyyy"
    moused_port="xxxx"
    moused_flags=""

In 3.1 and later, assuming you have a PS/2 mouse, all you need to is add moused_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf.

In addition, if you would like to be able to use the mouse daemon on all virtual terminals instead of just console at boot-time, add the following to /etc/rc.conf.

    allscreens_flags="-m on"

Staring from FreeBSD 2.2.6, the mouse daemon is capable of determining the correct protocol type automatically unless the mouse is a relatively old serial mouse model. Specify auto the protocol to invoke automatic detection.

When the mouse daemon is running, access to the mouse needs to be coordinated between the mouse daemon and other programs such as the X Window. Refer to another section on this issue.

A: Once you get the mouse daemon running (see previous section), hold down the button 1 (left button) and move the mouse to select a region of text. Then, press the button 2 (middle button) or the button 3 (right button) to paste it at the text cursor.

In versions 2.2.6 and later, pressing the button 2 will paste the text. Pressing the button 3 will ``extend'' the selected region of text. If your mouse does not have the middle button, you may wish to emulate it or remap buttons using moused options. See the moused(8) man page for details.

A: USB device support was added to FreeBSD 3.1. However, it is still in a preliminary state and may not always work as of version 3.2. If you want to experiment with the USB mouse support, follow the procedure described below.

1. Use FreeBSD 3.2 or later.

2. Add the following lines to your kernel configuration file, and rebuild the kernel.

       device  uhci
       device  ohci
       device  usb
       device  ums
   

   In versions of FreeBSD before 4.0, use this instead:

       controller        uhci0
       controller        ohci0
       controller        usb0
       device            ums0
   

3. Go to the /dev directory and create a device node as follows:

       # cd /dev
       # ./MAKEDEV ums0
   

4. Edit /etc/rc.conf and add the following lines:

       moused_enable="YES"
       moused_type="auto"
       moused_port="/dev/ums0"
       moused_flags=""
       usbd_enable="YES"
       usbd_flags=""
   

   See the previous section for more detailed discussion on moused.

5. In order to use the USB mouse in the X session, edit XF86Config. If you are using XFree86 3.3.2 or later, be sure to have the following lines in the Pointer section:

       Device          "/dev/sysmouse"
       Protocol        "Auto"
   

   If you are using earlier versions of XFree86, be sure to have the following lines in the Pointer section:

       Device          "/dev/sysmouse"
       Protocol        "SysMouse"
   

Refer to another section on the mouse support in the X environment.

Hot-plugging and unplugging of the USB mouse may not work quite right yet. It is a good idea connect the mouse before you start the system and leave it connected until the system is shutdown to avoid trouble.

A: The answer is, unfortunately, ``It depends''. These mice with additional features require specialized driver in most cases. Unless the mouse device driver or the user program has specific support for the mouse, it will act just like a standard two, or three button mouse.

For the possible usage of wheels in the X Window environment, refer to that section.

A: The PS/2 mouse driver psm in FreeBSD versions 3.2 or earlier has difficulty with some wheel mice, including Logitech model M-S48 and its OEM siblings. Apply the following patch to /sys/i386/isa/psm.c and rebuild the kernel.

    Index: psm.c
    ===================================================================
    RCS file: /src/CVS/src/sys/i386/isa/Attic/psm.c,v
    retrieving revision 1.60.2.1
    retrieving revision 1.60.2.2
    diff -u -r1.60.2.1 -r1.60.2.2
    --- psm.c        1999/06/03 12:41:13 1.60.2.1
    +++ psm.c        1999/07/12 13:40:52 1.60.2.2
    @@ -959,14 +959,28 @@
         sc->mode.packetsize = vendortype[i].packetsize;
    
         /* set mouse parameters */
    +#if 0
    +    /*
    +     * A version of Logitech FirstMouse+ won't report wheel movement,
    +     * if SET_DEFAULTS is sent...  Don't use this command.
    +     * This fix was found by Takashi Nishida.
    +     */
         i = send_aux_command(sc->kbdc, PSMC_SET_DEFAULTS);
         if (verbose >= 2)
             printf("psm%d: SET_DEFAULTS return code:%04x\n", unit, i);
    +#endif
         if (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) {
             sc->mode.resolution
                 = set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc,
    -                (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) - 1);
    +                       (sc->config & PSM_CONFIG_RESOLUTION) - 1);
    +    } else if (sc->mode.resolution >= 0) {
    +        sc->mode.resolution
    +            = set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc, sc->dflt_mode.resolution);
    +    }
    +    if (sc->mode.rate > 0) {
    +        sc->mode.rate = set_mouse_sampling_rate(sc->kbdc, sc->dflt_mode.rate);
         }
    +    set_mouse_scaling(sc->kbdc, 1);
    
         /* request a data packet and extract sync. bits */
         if (get_mouse_status(sc->kbdc, stat, 1, 3) < 3) {

Versions later than 3.2 should be all right.

A: Please refer to the answer to the previous question. And check out this note on the Mobile Computing page.

A: FreeBSD supports SCSI, QIC-36 (with a QIC-02 interface) and QIC-40/80 (Floppy based) tape drives. This includes 8-mm (aka Exabyte) and DAT drives. The QIC-40/80 drives are known to be slow.

Some of the early 8-mm drives are not quite compatible with SCSI-2, and may not work well with FreeBSD.

A: FreeBSD 2.2 supports SCSI changers using the ch(4) device and the chio(1) command. The details of how you actually control the changer can be found in the chio(1) man page.

If you're not using AMANDA or some other product that already understands changers, remember that they're only know how to move a tape from one point to another, so you need to keep track of which slot a tape is in, and which slot the tape currently in the drive needs to go back to.

A: FreeBSD supports the SoundBlaster, SoundBlaster Pro, SoundBlaster 16, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, AdLib and Gravis UltraSound sound cards. There is also limited support for MPU-401 and compatible MIDI cards. Cards conforming to the Microsoft Sound System specification are also supported through the pcm driver.

A: You can run the following command everytime the machine booted up:

    # mixer pcm 100 vol 100 cd 100

A: See the Ethernet cards section of the handbook for a more complete list.

A:

In general this will not cause any problems, but there are circumstances where you will take a hit, either in performance or accuracy of the math emulation code (see the section on FP emulation). In particular, drawing arcs in X will be VERY slow. It is highly recommended that you buy a math co-processor; it's well worth it.

A: See the Handbook for the list of other devices supported.

A: FreeBSD supports APM on certain machines. Please look in the LINT kernel config file, searching for the APM keyword.

A: Certain Micron motherboards have a non-conforming PCI BIOS implementation that causes grief when FreeBSD boots because PCI devices don't get configured at their reported addresses.

Disable the ``Plug and Play Operating System'' flag in the BIOS to work around this problem. More information can be found at http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html#micron

A: The newer AIC789x series Adaptec chips are supported under the CAM SCSI framework which made it's debut in 3.0. Patches against 2.2-STABLE are in ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/development/cam/. A CAM-enhanced boot floppy is available at http://people.FreeBSD.org/~abial/cam-boot/. In both cases read the README before beginning.

A: You will need to add the modem's PnP ID to the PnP ID list in the serial driver. To enable Plug & Play support, compile a new kernel with controller pnp0 in the configuration file, then reboot the system. The kernel will print the PnP IDs of all the devices it finds. Copy the PnP ID from the modem to the table in /sys/i386/isa/sio.c, at about line 2777. Look for the string SUP1310 in the structure siopnp_ids[] to find the table. Build the kernel again, install, reboot, and your modem should be found.

You may have to manually configure the PnP devices using the pnp command in the boot-time configuration with a command like

    pnp 1 0 enable os irq0 3 drq0 0 port0 0x2f8

to make the modem show.

A:

1. Build a kernel with options COMCONSOLE.

2. Create /boot.config and place -P as the only text in the file.

3. Unplug the keyboard from the system.

See /usr/src/sys/i386/boot/biosboot/README.serial for information.

A: Certain Micron motherboards have a non-conforming PCI BIOS implementation that does not configure PCI devices at the addresses reported. This causes grief when FreeBSD boots.

To work around this problem, disable the ``Plug and Play Operating System'' flag in the BIOS.

More information on this problem is available at URL: http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html#micron

A: SMP is supported in 3.0-STABLE and later releases only. SMP is not enabled in the GENERIC kernel, so you will have to recompile your kernel to enable SMP. Take a look at /sys/i386/conf/LINT to figure out what options to put in your kernel config file.

A: Go in to the BIOS setup and disable the boot virus protection.

A: With SCSI drives, the drive should be capable of re-mapping these automatically. However, many drives are shipped with this feature disabled, for some mysterious reason...

To enable this, you'll need to edit the first device page mode, which can be done on FreeBSD by giving the command (as root)

    # scsi -f /dev/rsd0c -m 1 -e -P 3

and changing the values of AWRE and ARRE from 0 to 1:-

    AWRE (Auto Write Reallocation Enbld):  1
    ARRE (Auto Read Reallocation Enbld):  1

The following paragraphs were submitted by Ted Mittelstaedt:

For IDE drives, any bad block is usually a sign of potential trouble. All modern IDE drives come with internal bad-block remapping turned on. All IDE hard drive manufacturers today offer extensive warranties and will replace drives with bad blocks on them.

If you still want to attempt to rescue an IDE drive with bad blocks, you can attempt to download the IDE drive manufacturer's IDE diagnostic program, and run this against the drive. Sometimes these programs can be set to force the drive electronics to rescan the drive for bad blocks and lock them out.

For ESDI, RLL and MFM drives, bad blocks are a normal part of the drive and are no sign of trouble, generally. With a PC, the disk drive controller card and BIOS handle the task of locking out bad sectors. This is fine for operating systems like DOS that use BIOS code to access the disk. However, FreeBSD's disk driver does not go through BIOS, therefore a mechanism, bad144, exists that replaces this functionality. bad144 only works with the wd driver (which means it is not supported in FreeBSD 4.0), it is NOT able to be used with SCSI. bad144 works by entering all bad sectors found into a special file.

One caveat with bad144 - the bad block special file is placed on the last track of the disk. As this file may possibly contain a listing for a bad sector that would occur near the beginning of the disk, where the /kernel file might be located, it therefore must be accessible to the bootstrap program that uses BIOS calls to read the kernel file. This means that the disk with bad144 used on it must not exceed 1024 cylinders, 16 heads, and 63 sectors. This places an effective limit of 500MB on a disk that is mapped with bad144.

To use bad144, simply set the ``Bad Block'' scanning to ON in the FreeBSD fdisk screen during the initial install. This works up through FreeBSD 2.2.7. The disk must have less than 1024 cylinders. It is generally recommended that the disk drive has been in operation for at least 4 hours prior to this to allow for thermal expansion and track wandering.

If the disk has more than 1024 cylinders (such as a large ESDI drive) the ESDI controller uses a special translation mode to make it work under DOS. The wd driver understands about these translation modes, IF you enter the ``translated'' geometry with the ``set geometry'' command in fdisk. You must also NOT use the ``dangerously dedicated'' mode of creating the FreeBSD partition, as this ignores the geometry. Also, even though fdisk will use your overridden geometry, it still knows the true size of the disk, and will attempt to create a too large FreeBSD partition. If the disk geometry is changed to the translated geometry, the partition MUST be manually created with the number of blocks.

A quick trick to use is to set up the large ESDI disk with the ESDI controller, boot it with a DOS disk and format it with a DOS partition. Then, boot the FreeBSD install and in the fdisk screen, read off and write down the blocksize and block numbers for the DOS partition. Then, reset the geometry to the same that DOS uses, delete the DOS partition, and create a ``cooperative'' FreeBSD partition using the blocksize you recorded earlier. Then, set the partition bootable and turn on bad block scanning. During the actual install, bad144 will run first, before any filesystems are created. (you can view this with an Alt-F2) If it has any trouble creating the badsector file, you have set too large a disk geometry - reboot the system and start all over again (including repartitioning and reformatting with DOS).

If remapping is enabled and you are seeing bad blocks, consider replacing the drive. The bad blocks will only get worse as time goes on.

A: This info is specific to the 742a but may also cover other Buslogic cards. (Bustek = Buslogic)

There are 2 general ``versions'' of the 742a card. They are hardware revisions A-G, and revisions H - onwards. The revision letter is located after the Assembly number on the edge of the card. The 742a has 2 ROM chips on it, one is the BIOS chip and the other is the Firmware chip. FreeBSD doesn't care what version of BIOS chip you have but it does care about what version of firmware chip. Buslogic will send upgrade ROMS out if you call their tech support dept. The BIOS and Firmware chips are shipped as a matched pair. You must have the most current Firmware ROM in your adapter card for your hardware revision.

The REV A-G cards can only accept BIOS/Firmware sets up to 2.41/2.21. The REV H- up cards can accept the most current BIOS/Firmware sets of 4.70/3.37. The difference between the firmware sets is that the 3.37 firmware supports ``round robin''

The Buslogic cards also have a serial number on them. If you have a old hardware revision card you can call the Buslogic RMA department and give them the serial number and attempt to exchange the card for a newer hardware revision. If the card is young enough they will do so.

FreeBSD 2.1 only supports Firmware revisions 2.21 onward. If you have a Firmware revision older than this your card will not be recognized as a Buslogic card. It may be recognized as an Adaptec 1540, however. The early Buslogic firmware contains an AHA1540 ``emulation'' mode. This is not a good thing for an EISA card, however.

If you have an old hardware revision card and you obtain the 2.21 firmware for it, you will need to check the position of jumper W1 to B-C, the default is A-B.

A: This is basically a known problem. The EISA on-board SCSI controller in the HP Netserver machines occupies EISA slot number 11, so all the ``true'' EISA slots are in front of it. Alas, the address space for EISA slots >= 10 collides with the address space assigned to PCI, and FreeBSD's auto-configuration currently cannot handle this situation very well.

So now, the best you can do is to pretend there is no address range clash :), by bumping the kernel option EISA_SLOTS to a value of 12. Configure and compile a kernel, as described in the Handbook entry on configuring the kernel.

Of course, this does present you with a chicken-and-egg problem when installing on such a machine. In order to work around this problem, a special hack is available inside UserConfig. Do not use the ``visual'' interface, but the plain command-line interface there. Simply type

    eisa 12
    quit

at the prompt, and install your system as usual. While it's recommended you compile and install a custom kernel anyway,

Hopefully, future versions will have a proper fix for this problem.

A: It's broken. It cannot handle commands on both channels simultaneously.

There's a workaround available now and it is enabled automatically if your system uses this chip. For the details refer to the manual page of the disk driver (man 4 wd).

If you're already running FreeBSD 2.2.1 or 2.2.2 with a CMD640 IDE controller and you want to use the second channel, build a new kernel with options "CMD640" enabled. This is the default for 2.2.5 and later.

A: This is usually caused by an interrupt conflict (e.g., two boards using the same IRQ). FreeBSD prior to 2.0.5R used to be tolerant of this, and the network driver would still function in the presence of IRQ conflicts. However, with 2.0.5R and later, IRQ conflicts are no longer tolerated. Boot with the -c option and change the ed0/de0/... entry to match your board.

If you're using the BNC connector on your network card, you may also see device timeouts because of bad termination. To check this, attach a terminator directly to the NIC (with no cable) and see if the error messages go away.

Some NE2000 compatible cards will give this error if there is no link on the UTP port or if the cable is disconnected.

A: You have to tell mount the type of the device that you want to mount. By default, mount(8) will assume the filesystem is of type ufs. You want to mount a CDROM filesystem, and you do this by specifying the -t cd9660 option to mount(8). This does, of course, assume that the CDROM contains an ISO 9660 filesystem, which is what most CDROMs have. As of 1.1R, FreeBSD automatically understands the Rock Ridge (long filename) extensions as well.

As an example, if you want to mount the CDROM device, /dev/cd0c, under /mnt, you would execute:

    # mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0c /mnt

Note that your device name (/dev/cd0c in this example) could be different, depending on the CDROM interface. Note that the -t cd9660 option just causes the mount_cd9660 command to be executed, and so the above example could be shortened to:

    # mount_cd9660 /dev/cd0c /mnt

A: This generally means that there is no CDROM in the CDROM drive, or the drive is not visible on the bus. Feed the drive something, and/or check its master/slave status if it is IDE (ATAPI). It can take a couple of seconds for a CDROM drive to notice that it's been fed, so be patient.

Sometimes a SCSI CD-ROM may be missed because it hadn't enough time to answer the bus reset. If you have a SCSI CD-ROM please try to add the following symbol into your kernel configuration file and recompile.

    options "SCSI_DELAY=15"

A: If it's parallel, and the only problem is that it's terribly slow, try setting your printer port into ``polled'' mode:

    # lptcontrol -p

Some newer HP printers are claimed not to work correctly in interrupt mode, apparently due to some (not yet exactly understood) timing problem.

A: Signal 11 errors are caused when your process has attempted to access memory which the operating system has not granted it access to. If something like this is happening at seemingly random intervals then you need to start investigating things very carefully.

These problems can usually be attributed to either:

1. If the problem is occurring only in a specific application that you are developing yourself it is probably a bug in your code.

2. If it's a problem with part of the base FreeBSD system, it may also be buggy code, but more often than not these problems are found and fixed long before us general FAQ readers get to use these bits of code (that's what -current is for).

In particular, a dead giveaway that this is *not* a FreeBSD bug is if you see the problem when you're compiling a program, but the activity that the compiler is carrying out changes each time.

For example, suppose you're running "make buildworld", and the compile fails while trying to compile ls.c in to ls.o. If you next run "make buildworld" again, and the compile fails in the same place then this is a broken build -- try updating your sources and try again. If the compile fails elsewhere then this is almost certainly hardware.

What you should do:

In the first case you can use a debugger e.g. gdb to find the point in the program which is attempting to access a bogus address and then fix it.

In the second case you need to verify that it's not your hardware at fault.

Common causes of this include :

1. Your hard disks might be overheating: Check the fans in your case are still working, as your disk (and perhaps other hardware might be overheating).

2. The processor running is overheating: This might be because the processor has been overclocked, or the fan on the processor might have died. In either case you need to ensure that you have hardware running at what it's specified to run at, at least while trying to solve this problem. i.e. Clock it back to the default settings.

   If you are overclocking then note that it's far cheaper to have a slow system than a fried system that needs replacing! Also the wider community is not often sympathetic to problems on overclocked systems, whether you believe it's safe or not.

3. Dodgy memory: If you have multiple memory SIMMS/DIMMS installed then pull them all out and try running the machine with each SIMM or DIMM individually and narrow the problem down to either the problematic DIMM/SIMM or perhaps even a combination.

4. Over-optimistic Motherboard settings: In your BIOS settings, and some motherboard jumpers you have options to set various timings, mostly the defaults will be sufficient, but sometimes, setting the wait states on RAM too low, or setting the "RAM Speed: Turbo" option, or similar in the BIOS will cause strange behaviour. A possible idea is to set to BIOS defaults, but it might be worth noting down your settings first!

5. Unclean or insufficient power to the motherboard. If you have any unused I/O boards, hard disks, or CDROMs in your system, try temporarily removing them or disconnecting the power cable from them, to see if your power supply can manage a smaller load. Or try another power supply, preferably one with a little more power (for instance, if your current power supply is rated at 250 Watts try one rated at 300 Watts).

You should also read the SIG11 FAQ (listed below) which has excellent explanations of all these problems, albeit from a Linux viewpoint. It also discusses how memory testing software or hardware can still pass faulty memory.

Finally, if none of this has helped it is possible that you've just found a bug in FreeBSD, and you should follow the instructions to send a problem report.

There's an extensive FAQ on this at the SIG11 problem FAQ

A: This is a known problem with the ATI Mach 64 video card. The problem is that this card uses address 2e8, and the fourth serial port does too. Due to a bug (feature?) in the sio(4) driver it will touch this port even if you don't have the fourth serial port, and even if you disable sio3 (the fourth port) which normally uses this address.

Until the bug has been fixed, you can use this workaround:

1. Enter -c at the bootprompt. (This will put the kernel into configuration mode).

2. Disable sio0, sio1, sio2 and sio3 (all of them). This way the sio driver doesn't get activated -> no problems.

3. Type exit to continue booting.

If you want to be able to use your serial ports, you'll have to build a new kernel with the following modification: in /usr/src/sys/i386/isa/sio.c find the one occurrence of the string 0x2e8 and remove that string and the preceding comma (keep the trailing comma). Now follow the normal procedure of building a new kernel.

Even after applying these workarounds, you may still find that the X Window System does not work properly. If this is the case, make sure that the XFree86 version you are using is at least XFree86 3.3.3 or higher. This version and upwards has built-in support for the Mach64 cards and even a dedicated X server for those cards.

A: Due to the manner in which FreeBSD gets the memory size from the BIOS, it can only detect 16 bits worth of Kbytes in size (65535 Kbytes = 64MB) (or less... some BIOSes peg the memory size to 16M). If you have more than 64MB, FreeBSD will attempt to detect it; however, the attempt may fail.

To work around this problem, you need to use the kernel option specified below. There is a way to get complete memory information from the BIOS, but we don't have room in the bootblocks to do it. Someday when lack of room in the bootblocks is fixed, we'll use the extended BIOS functions to get the full memory information...but for now we're stuck with the kernel option.

options "MAXMEM=n"

Where n is your memory in Kilobytes. For a 128 MB machine, you'd want to use 131072.

A:

The panic indicates that the system ran out of virtual memory for network buffers (specifically, mbuf clusters). You can increase the amount of VM available for mbuf clusters by adding:

options "NMBCLUSTERS=n"

to your kernel config file, where n is a number in the range 512-4096, depending on the number of concurrent TCP connections you need to support. I'd recommend trying 2048 - this should get rid of the panic completely. You can monitor the number of mbuf clusters allocated/in use on the system with netstat -m. The default value for NMBCLUSTERS is 512 + MAXUSERS * 16.

A: The logic that attempts to detect an out of date /var/db/kvm_*.db files sometimes fails and using a mismatched file can sometimes lead to panics.

If this happens, reboot single-user and do:

    # rm /var/db/kvm_*.db

A: This is a conflict with an Ultrastor SCSI Host Adapter.

During the boot process enter the kernel configuration menu and disable uha0, which is causing the problem.

A: This is answered in the sendmail FAQ as follows:-

        * I'm getting "Local configuration error" messages, such as:

        553 relay.domain.net config error: mail loops back to myself
        554 <user@domain.net>... Local configuration error

        How can I solve this problem?

        You have asked mail to the domain (e.g., domain.net) to be
        forwarded to a specific host (in this case, relay.domain.net)
        by using an MX record, but the relay machine doesn't recognize
        itself as domain.net.  Add domain.net to /etc/sendmail.cw
        (if you are using FEATURE(use_cw_file)) or add "Cw domain.net"
        to /etc/sendmail.cf.
            

The current version of the sendmail FAQ is no longer maintained with the sendmail release. It is however regularly posted to comp.mail.sendmail, comp.mail.misc, comp.mail.smail, comp.answers, and news.answers. You can also receive a copy via email by sending a message to <mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu> with the command send usenet/news.answers/mail/sendmail-faq as the body of the message.

A: The remote machine may be setting your terminal type to something other than the cons25 terminal type required by the FreeBSD console.

There are a number of possible work-arounds for this problem:

• After logging on to the remote machine, set your TERM shell variable to ansi or sco if the remote machine knows about these terminal types.

• Use a VT100 emulator like screen at the FreeBSD console. screen offers you the ability to run multiple concurrent sessions from one terminal, and is a neat program in its own right. Each screen window behaves like a VT100 terminal, so the TERM variable at the remote end should be set to vt100.

• Install the cons25 terminal database entry on the remote machine. The way to do this depends on the operating system on the remote machine. The system administration manuals for the remote system should be able to help you here.

• Fire up an X server at the FreeBSD end and login to the remote machine using an X based terminal emulator such as xterm or rxvt. The TERM variable at the remote host should be set to xterm or vt100.

A: This can be caused by various hardware and/or software ailments relating to interrupts. It may be due to bugs but can also happen by nature of certain devices. Running TCP/IP over the parallel port using a large MTU is one good way to provoke this problem. Graphics accelerators can also get you here, in which case you should check the interrupt setting of the card first.

A side effect of this problem are dying processes with the message ``SIGXCPU exceeded cpu time limit''.

For FreeBSD 3.0 and later from Nov 29, 1998 forward: If the problem cannot be fixed otherwise the solution is to set this sysctl variable:

    # sysctl -w kern.timecounter.method=1

This means a performance impact, but considering the cause of this problem, you probably will not notice. If the problem persists, keep the sysctl set to one and set the NTIMECOUNTER option in your kernel to increasingly large values. If by the time you have reached NTIMECOUNTER=20 the problem isn't solved, interrupts are too hosed on your machine for reliable timekeeping.

A: This occurs in FreeBSD 3.x with PCI sound cards. The pcm0 device is reserved exclusively for ISA-based cards so, if you have a PCI card, then you will see this error, and your card will appear as pcm1.

If you have a PCI sound card you will also have to make the snd1 device rather than snd0:

    # cd /dev
    # ./MAKEDEV snd1

This situation does not arise in FreeBSD 4.x as has a lot of work has been done to make the it more PnP-centric and the pcm0 device is no longer reserved exclusively fo ISA cards

A: FreeBSD 4.x is now much more PnP-centric and this has had the side effect of some PnP devices (e.g. sound cards and internal modems) not working even though they worked under FreeBSD 3.x.

The reasons for this behaviour are explained by the following e-mail, posted to the freebsd-questions mailing list by Peter Wemm, in answer to a question about an internal modem that was no longer found after an upgrade to FreeBSD 4.x (the comments in [] have been added to clarify the context.

The PNP bios preconfigured it [the modem] and left it laying around in port space, so [in 3.x] the old-style ISA probes ``found'' it there.

Under 4.0, the ISA code is much more PnP-centric. It was possible [in 3.x] for an ISA probe to find a ``stray'' device and then for the PNP device id to match and then fail due to resource conflicts. So, it disables the programmable cards first so this double probing cannot happen. It also means that it needs to know the PnP id's for supported PnP hardware. Making this more user tweakable is on the TODO list.

To get the device working again requires finding its PnP id and adding it to the list that the ISA probes use to identify PnP devices. This is obtained using pnpinfo(8) to probe the device, for example this is the output from pnpinfo(8) for an internal modem:

    # pnpinfo
    Checking for Plug-n-Play devices...
    
    Card assigned CSN #1
    Vendor ID PMC2430 (0x3024a341), Serial Number 0xffffffff
    PnP Version 1.0, Vendor Version 0
    Device Description: Pace 56 Voice Internal Plug & Play Modem
    
    Logical Device ID: PMC2430 0x3024a341 #0
            Device supports I/O Range Check
    TAG Start DF
        I/O Range 0x3f8 .. 0x3f8, alignment 0x8, len 0x8
            [16-bit addr]
        IRQ: 4  - only one type (true/edge)

[more TAG lines elided]

    TAG End DF
    End Tag
    
    Successfully got 31 resources, 1 logical fdevs
    -- card select # 0x0001
    
    CSN PMC2430 (0x3024a341), Serial Number 0xffffffff
    
    Logical device #0
    IO:  0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8 0x03e8
    IRQ 5 0
    DMA 4 0
    IO range check 0x00 activate 0x01

The information you require is in the ``Vendor ID'' line at the start of the output. The hexadecimal number in parentheses (0x3024a341 in this example) is the PnP id and the string immediately before this (PMC2430) is a unique ASCII id. This information needs adding to the file /usr/src/sys/isa/sio.c.

You should first make a backup of sio.c just in case things go wrong. You will also need it to make the patch to submit with your PR (you are going to submit a PR, aren't you?) then edit sio.c and search for the line

    static struct isa_pnp_id sio_ids[] = {

then scroll down to find the correct place to add the entry for your device. The entries look like this, and are sorted on the ASCII Vendor ID string which should be included in the comment to the right of the line of code along with all (if it will fit) or part of the Device Description from the output of pnpinfo(8):

    {0x0f804f3f, NULL},     /* OZO800f - Zoom 2812 (56k Modem) */
    {0x39804f3f, NULL},     /* OZO8039 - Zoom 56k flex */
    {0x3024a341, NULL},     /* PMC2430 - Pace 56 Voice Internal Modem */
    {0x1000eb49, NULL},     /* ROK0010 - Rockwell ? */
    {0x5002734a, NULL},     /* RSS0250 - 5614Jx3(G) Internal Modem */
              

Add the hexadecimal Vendor ID for your device in the correct place, save the file, rebuild your kernel, and reboot. Your device should now be found as an sio device as it was under FreeBSD 3.x

A: Contact Apps2go for the least expensive ELF Motif 2.1.20 distribution for FreeBSD (either i386 or Alpha).

There are two distributions, the ``developement edition'' and the ``runtime edition'' (for much less). These distributions includes:

• OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.

• Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include and Imake files.

• Static and dynamic ELF libraries (for use with FreeBSD 3.0 and above).

• Demonstration applets.

Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version of Motif when ordering (don't forget to mention the architecture you want too)! Versions for NetBSD and OpenBSD are also sold by Apps2go. This is currently a FTP only download.

Contact Metro Link for an either ELF or a.out Motif 2.1 distribution for FreeBSD.

This distribution includes:

• OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.

• Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include and Imake files.

• Static and dynamic libraries (specify ELF for use with FreeBSD 3.0 and later; or a.out for use with FreeBSD 2.2.8 and eariler).

• Demonstration applets.

• Preformatted man pages.

Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version of Motif when ordering! Versions for Linux are also sold by Metro Link. This is available on either a CDROM or for FTP download.

Contact Xi Graphics for an a.out Motif 2.0 distribution for FreeBSD.

This distribution includes:

• OSF/Motif manager, xmbind, panner, wsm.

• Development kit with uil, mrm, xm, xmcxx, include and Imake files.

• Static and dynamic libraries (for use with FreeBSD 2.2.8 and eariler).

• Demonstration applets.

• Preformatted man pages.

Be sure to specify that you want the FreeBSD version of Motif when ordering! Versions for BSDI and Linux are also sold by Xi Graphics. This is currently a 4 diskette set... in the future this will change to a unified CD distribution like their CDE.

A: Xi Graphics used to sell CDE for FreeBSD, but no longer do.

KDE is an open source X11 desktop which is similar to CDE in many respects. You might also like the look and feel of xfce. KDE and xfce are both in the ports system.

A: Yes, Xi Graphics and Metro Link sells Accelerated-X product for FreeBSD and other Intel based systems.

The Metro Link offering is a high performance X Server that offers easy configuration using the FreeBSD Package suite of tools, support for multiple concurrent video boards and is distributed in binary form only, in a convienent FTP download. Not to mention the Metro Link offering is available at the very reasonable price of $39.

Metro Link also sells both ELF and a.out Motif for FreeBSD (see above).

The Xi Graphics offering is a high performance X Server that offers easy configuration, support for multiple concurrent video boards and is distributed in binary form only, in a unified diskette distribution for FreeBSD and Linux. Xi Graphics also offers a high performance X Server taylored for laptop support.

There is a free ``compatibility demo'' of version 5.0 available.

Xi Graphics also sells Motif and CDE for FreeBSD (see above).

A: Yes! See the Commercial Vendors section of FreeBSD's Web site.

Also see the Databases section of the Ports collection.

A: Yes. The following pages tell you exactly how to setup Linux-Oracle on FreeBSD:

• http://www.scc.nl/~marcel/howto-oracle.html

• http://www.lf.net/lf/pi/oracle/install-linux-oracle-on-freebsd

A: Please take a look at the ports page for info on software packages ported to FreeBSD. The list currently tops 3400 and is growing daily, so come back to check often or subscribe to the freebsd-announce mailing list for periodic updates on new entries.

Most ports should be available for the 2.2, 3.x and 4.x branches, and many of them should work on 2.1.x systems as well. Each time a FreeBSD release is made, a snapshot of the ports tree at the time of release in also included in the ports/ directory.

We also support the concept of a ``package'', essentially no more than a gzipped binary distribution with a little extra intelligence embedded in it for doing whatever custom installation work is required. A package can be installed and uninstalled again easily without having to know the gory details of which files it includes.

Use the package installation menu in /stand/sysinstall (under the post-configuration menu item) or invoke the pkg_add(1) command on the specific package files you're interested in installing. Package files can usually be identified by their .tgz suffix and CDROM distribution people will have a packages/All directory on their CD which contains such files. They can also be downloaded over the net for various versions of FreeBSD at the following locations:

or your nearest local mirror site.

Note that all ports may not be available as packages since new ones are constantly being added. It is always a good idea to check back periodically to see which packages are available at the ftp.FreeBSD.org master site.

A: Because POSIX says that there shall be such a shell.

The more complicated answer: many people need to write shell scripts which will be portable across many systems. That's why POSIX specifies the shell and utility commands in great detail. Most scripts are written in Bourne shell, and because several important programming interfaces (make(1), system(3), popen(3), and analogues in higher-level scripting languages like Perl and Tcl) are specified to use the Bourne shell to interpret commands. Because the Bourne shell is so often and widely used, it is important for it to be quick to start, be deterministic in its behavior, and have a small memory footprint.

The existing implementation is our best effort at meeting as many of these requirements simultaneously as we can. In order to keep /bin/sh small, we have not provided many of the convenience features that other shells have. That's why the Ports Collection includes more featureful shells like bash, scsh, tcsh, and zsh. (You can compare for yourself the memory utilization of all these shells by looking at the ``VSZ'' and ``RSS'' columns in a ps -u listing.)

A: You are trying to run a package built on 2.2 and later on a 2.1.x system. Please take a look at the previous section and get the correct port/package for your system.

A: You accidently downloaded packages meant for 4.X and 5.X systems and attempted to install them on your 2.X or 3.X FreeBSD system. Please download the correct version of the packages.

A: You don't have a math co-processor, right? You will need to add the alternative math emulator to your kernel; you do this by adding the following to your kernel config file and it will be compiled in.

    options GPL_MATH_EMULATE

A: You first need to edit the /etc/sysconfig (or /etc/rc.conf) file in the last section to change the following variable to YES:

    # Set to YES if you want ibcs2 (SCO) emulation loaded at startup
    ibcs2=NO

It will load the ibcs2 kernel module at startup.

You'll then need to set up /compat/ibcs2/dev to look like:

    lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel         9 Oct 15 22:20 X0R@ -> /dev/null
    lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel         7 Oct 15 22:20 nfsd@ -> socksys
    -rw-rw-r--  1 root  wheel         0 Oct 28 12:02 null
    lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel         9 Oct 15 22:20 socksys@ -> /dev/null
    crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   41,   1 Oct 15 22:14 spx

You just need socksys to go to /dev/null to fake the open & close. The code in -CURRENT will handle the rest. This is much cleaner than the way it was done before. If you want the spx driver for a local socket X connection, define SPX_HACK when you compile the system.

A: After installing the inn package or port, an excellent place to start is Dave Barr's INN Page where you'll find the INN FAQ.

A: Use the Port, Luke! A pre-patched version of Apache is available in the ports tree.

A: Yes. Please see http://www.FreeBSD.org/java/.

A: If you're running a FreeBSD version that lags significantly behind -CURRENT or -STABLE, you may need a ports upgrade kit from http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/. If you are up to date, then someone might have committed a change to the port which works for -CURRENT but which broke the port for -STABLE. Please submit a bug report on this with the send-pr(1) command, since the ports collection is supposed to work for both the -CURRENT and -STABLE branches.

A: If you want to run some aout applications like Netscape Navigator on an Elf'ened machine such as 3.1-R or later, it would need /usr/libexec/ld.so and some aout libs. They are included in the compat22 distribution. Use /stand/sysinstall or install.sh in the compat22 subdirectory and install it. Also read ERRATAs for 3.1-R and 3.2-R.

A: Not at all! Check out the kernel config section of the Handbook.

A: Let me guess. You removed npx0 from your kernel configuration file because you don't have a math co-processor, right? Wrong! :-) The npx0 is MANDATORY. Even if you don't have a mathematic co-processor, you must include the npx0 device.

A: Chances are, you compiled your kernel in debug mode. Kernels built in debug mode contain many symbols that are used for debugging, thus greatly increasing the size of the kernel. Note that if you running a FreeBSD 3.0 or later system, there will be little or no performance decrease from running a debug kernel, and it is useful to keep one around in case of a system panic.

However, if you are running low on disk space, or you simply don't want to run a debug kernel, make sure that both of the following are true:

• You do not have a line in your kernel configuration file that reads:

      makeoptions DEBUG=-g
  

• You are not running config with the -g option.

Both of the above situations will cause your kernel to be built in debug mode. As long as you make sure you follow the steps above, you can build your kernel normally, and you should notice a fairly large size decrease; most kernels tend to be around 1.5MB to 2MB.

A: Q. When I compile a kernel with multi-port serial code, it tells me that only the first port is probed and the rest skipped due to interrupt conflicts. How do I fix this?

A. The problem here is that FreeBSD has code built-in to keep the kernel from getting trashed due to hardware or software conflicts. The way to fix this is to leave out the IRQ settings on all but one port. Here is a example:

    #
    # Multiport high-speed serial line - 16550 UARTS
    #
    device sio2 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty irq 5 flags 0x501 vector siointr
    device sio3 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr
    device sio4 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr
    device sio5 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x501 vector siointr

A: You need to uncomment the following line in the generic config file (or add it to your config file), add a flags 0x1 on the fdc line and recompile.

    controller  fdc0  at isa? port "IO_FD1" bio irq 6 drq 2 flags 0x1 vector fdintr
    disk        fd0   at fdc0 drive 0                       ^^^^^^^^^
    disk        fd1   at fdc0 drive 1
    #tape       ft0   at fdc0 drive 2
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Next, you create a device called /dev/ft0 by going into /dev and run the following command:

    # sh MAKEDEV ft0

for the first device. ft1 for a second one and so on.

You will have a device called /dev/ft0, which you can write to through a special program to manage it called fd - see the man page on ft for further details.

Versions previous to -CURRENT also had some trouble dealing with bad tape media; if you have trouble where ft seems to go back and forth over the same spot, try grabbing the latest version of ft from /usr/src/sbin/ft in -CURRENT and try that.

A: From 2.0.5R to 2.2.1R, the primary configuration file is /etc/sysconfig. All the options are to be specified in this file and other files such as /etc/rc and /etc/netstart just include it.

Look in the /etc/sysconfig file and change the value to match your system. This file is filled with comments to show what to put in there.

In post-2.2.1 and 3.0, /etc/sysconfig was renamed to a more self-describing rc.conf file and the syntax cleaned up a bit in the process. /etc/netstart was also renamed to /etc/rc.network so that all files could be copied with a cp /usr/src/etc/rc* /etc command.

And, in 3.1 and later, /etc/rc.conf has been moved to /etc/defaults/rc.conf. Do not edit this file! Instead, if there is any entry in /etc/defaults/rc.conf that you want to change, you should copy the line into /etc/rc.conf and change it there.

For example, if you wish to start named, the DNS server included with FreeBSD in FreeBSD 3.1 or later, all you need to do is:

    # echo named_enable="YES" >> /etc/rc.conf

To start up local services in FreeBSD 3.1 or later, place shell scripts in the /usr/local/etc.rd directory. These shell scripts should be set executable, and end with a .sh. In FreeBSD 3.0 and earlier releases, you should edit the /etc/rc.local file.

The /etc/rc.serial is for serial port initialization (e.g. locking the port characteristics, and so on.).

The /etc/rc.i386 is for Intel-specifics settings, such as iBCS2 emulation or the PC system console configuration.

A: Use the adduser command. For more complicated usage, the pw command.

To remove the user again, use the rmuser command. Once again, pw will work as well.

A: See the Disk Formatting Tutorial at www.FreeBSD.org.

A: Whether it's a removable drive like a ZIP or an EZ drive (or even a floppy, if you want to use it that way), or a new hard disk, once it's installed and recognized by the system, and you have your cartridge/floppy/whatever slotted in, things are pretty much the same for all devices.

(this section is based on Mark Mayo's ZIP FAQ)

If it's a ZIP drive or a floppy , you've already got a DOS filesystem on it, you can use a command like this:

    # mount -t msdos /dev/fd0c /floppy

if it's a floppy, or this:

    # mount -t msdos /dev/da2s4 /zip

for a ZIP disk with the factory configuration.

For other disks, see how they're laid out using fdisk or /stand/sysinstall.

The rest of the examples will be for a ZIP drive on da2, the third SCSI disk.

Unless it's a floppy, or a removable you plan on sharing with other people, it's probably a better idea to stick a BSD file system on it. You'll get long filename support, at least a 2X improvement in performance, and a lot more stability. First, you need to redo the DOS-level partitions/filesystems. You can either use fdisk or /stand/sysinstall, or for a small drive that you don't want to bother with multiple operating system support on, just blow away the whole FAT partition table (slices) and just use the BSD partitioning:

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rda2 count=2
    # disklabel -Brw da2 auto

You can use disklabel or /stand/sysinstall to create multiple BSD partitions. You'll certainly want to do this if you're adding swap space on a fixed disk, but it's probably irrelevant on a removable drive like a ZIP.

Finally, create a new file system, this one's on our ZIP drive using the whole disk:

    # newfs /dev/rda2c

and mount it:

    # mount /dev/da2c /zip

and it's probably a good idea to add a line like this to /etc/fstab so you can just type mount /zip in the future:

    /dev/da2c /zip ffs rw,noauto 0 0

A: This is normally caused by editing the system crontab (/etc/crontab) and then using crontab(1) to install it:

    # crontab /etc/crontab

This is not the correct way to do things. The system crontab has a different format to the per-user crontabs which crontab(1) updates (the crontab(5) manual page explains the differences in more detail).

If this is what you did, you should delete the /var/cron/tabs/root, since it will simply be a copy of /etc/crontab, in the wrong format. Next time, when you edit /etc/crontab, you should not do anything to inform cron(8) of the changes, since it will notice them automatically.

The actual reason for the error is that the system crontab has an extra field, specifying which user to run the command as. In the default system crontab provided with FreeBSD, this is root for all entries. When this crontab is used as the root user's crontab (which is not the same as the system crontab), cron(8) assumes the string root is the first word of the command to execute, but no such command exists.

A: When you get the prompt to enter the shell pathname, simply press ENTER, and run mount / to re-mount the root filesystem in read/write mode. You may also need to run mount -a -t ufs to mount the filesystem where your favourite editor is defined. If your favourite editor is on a network filesystem, you will need to either configure the network manually before you can mount network filesystems, or use an editor which resides on a local filesystem, such as ed(1).

If you intend to use a full screen editor such as vi(1) or emacs(1), you may also need to run export TERM=cons25 so that these editors can load the correct data from the termcap(5) database.

Once you have performed these steps, you can edit /etc/rc.conf as you usually would to fix the syntax error. The error message displayed immediately after the kernel boot messages should tell you the number of the line in the file which is at fault.

A: The secondary DOS partitions are found after ALL the primary partitions. For example, if you have an ``E'' partition as the second DOS partition on the second SCSI drive, you need to create the special files for ``slice 5'' in /dev, then mount /dev/da1s5:

    # cd /dev
    # sh MAKEDEV da1s5
    # mount -t msdos /dev/da1s5 /dos/e

A: Digital UNIX UFS CDROMs can be mounted directly on FreeBSD. Mounting disk partitions from Digital UNIX and other systems that support UFS may be more complex, depending on the details of the disk partitioning for the operating system in question.

Linux: 2.2 and later have support for ext2fs partitions. See mount_ext2fs for more information.

NT: A read-only NTFS driver exists for FreeBSD. For more information, see this tutorial by Mark Ovens at http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/ntfs_install.html.

Any other information on this subject would be appreciated.

A: This procedure is slightly different for 2.2.x and 3.x (with the 3-stage boot) systems.

The general idea is that you copy the first sector of your native root FreeBSD partition into a file in the DOS/NT partition. Assuming you name that file something like c:\bootsect.bsd (inspired by c:\bootsect.dos), you can then edit the c:\boot.ini file to come up with something like this:

    [boot loader]
    timeout=30
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
    [operating systems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows NT"
    C:\BOOTSECT.BSD="FreeBSD"
    C:\="DOS"

For 2.2.x systems this procedure assumes that DOS, NT, FreeBSD, or whatever have been installed into their respective fdisk partitions on the same disk. In my case DOS & NT are in the first fdisk partition and FreeBSD is in the second. I also installed FreeBSD to boot from its native partition, not the disk MBR.

Mount a DOS-formatted floppy (if you've converted to NTFS) or the FAT partition, under, say, /mnt.

    # dd if=/dev/rda0a of=/mnt/bootsect.bsd bs=512 count=1

Reboot into DOS or NT. NTFS users copy the bootsect.bsd and/or the bootsect.lnx file from the floppy to C:\. Modify the attributes (permissions) on boot.ini with:

    C:\> attrib -s -r c:\boot.ini

Edit to add the appropriate entries from the example boot.ini above, and restore the attributes:

    C:\> attrib +s +r c:\boot.ini

If FreeBSD is booting from the MBR, restore it with the DOS fdisk command after you reconfigure them to boot from their native partitions.

For FreeBSD 3.x systems the procedure is somewhat simpler.

If FreeBSD is installed on the same disk as the NT boot partition simply copy /boot/boot1 to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD However, if FreeBSD is installed on a different disk /boot/boot1 will not work, /boot/boot0 is needed.

/boot/boot0 needs to be installed using sysinstall by selecting the FreeBSD boot manager on the screen which asks if you wish to use a boot manager. This is because /boot/boot0 has the partition table area filled with NULL characters but sysinstall copies the partition table before copying /boot/boot0 to the MBR.

When the FreeBSD boot manager runs it records the last OS booted by setting the active flag on the partition table entry for that OS and then writes the whole 512-bytes of itself back to the MBR so if you just copy /boot/boot0 to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD then it writes an empty partition table, with the active flag set on one entry, to the MBR.

A: If you have FreeBSD and Linux on the same disk, just follow LILO's installation instructions for booting a non-Linux operating system. Very briefly, these are:

Boot Linux, and add the following lines to /etc/lilo.conf:

    other=/dev/hda2
            table=/dev/hda
            label=FreeBSD

(the above assumes that your FreeBSD slice is known to Linux as /dev/hda2; tailor to suit your setup). Then, run lilo as root and you should be done.

If FreeBSD resides on another disk, you need to add loader=/boot/chain.b to the LILO entry. For example:

    other=/dev/dab4
            table=/dev/dab
            loader=/boot/chain.b
            label=FreeBSD

In some cases you may need to specify the BIOS drive number to the FreeBSD boot loader to successfully boot off the second disk. For example, if your FreeBSD SCSI disk is probed by BIOS as BIOS disk 1, at the FreeBSD boot loader prompt you need to specify:

    Boot: 1:da(0,a)/kernel

On FreeBSD 2.2.5 and later, you can configure boot(8) to automatically do this for you at boot time.

The Linux+FreeBSD mini-HOWTO is a good reference for FreeBSD and Linux interoperability issues.

A: Install LILO at the start of your Linux boot partition instead of in the Master Boot Record. You can then boot LILO from BootEasy.

If you're running Windows-95 and Linux this is recommended anyway, to make it simpler to get Linux booting again if you should need to reinstall Windows95 (which is a Jealous Operating System, and will bear no other Operating Systems in the Master Boot Record).

A: The installation procedure allows you to chose two different methods in partitioning your harddisk(s). The default way makes it compatible with other operating systems on the same machine, by using fdisk table entries (called ``slices'' in FreeBSD), with a FreeBSD slice that employs partitions of its own. Optionally, one can chose to install a boot-selector to switch between the possible operating systems on the disk(s). The alternative uses the entire disk for FreeBSD, and makes no attempt to be compatible with other operating systems.

So why it is called ``dangerous''? A disk in this mode doesn't contain what normal PC utilities would consider a valid fdisk table. Depending on how well they have been designed, they might complain at you once they are getting in contact with such a disk, or even worse, they might damage the BSD bootstrap without even asking or notifying you. In addition, the ``dangerously dedicated'' disk's layout is known to confuse many BIOSsen, including those from AWARD (eg. as found in HP Netserver and Micronics systems as well as many others) and Symbios/NCR (for the popular 53C8xx range of SCSI controllers). This isn't a complete list, there are more. Symptoms of this confusion include the ``read error'' message printed by the FreeBSD bootstrap when it can't find itself, as well as system lockups when booting.

Why have this mode at all then? It only saves a few kbytes of disk space, and it can cause real problems for a new installation. ``Dangerously dedicated'' mode's origins lie in a desire to avoid one of the most common problems plaguing new FreeBSD installers - matching the BIOS ``geometry'' numbers for a disk to the disk itself.

``Geometry'' is an outdated concept, but one still at the heart of the PC's BIOS and its interaction with disks. When the FreeBSD installer creates slices, it has to record the location of these slices on the disk in a fashion that corresponds with the way the BIOS expects to find them. If it gets it wrong, you won't be able to boot.

``Dangerously dedicated'' mode tries to work around this by making the problem simpler. In some cases, it gets it right. But it's meant to be used as a last-ditch alternative - there are better ways to solve the problem 99 times out of 100.

So, how do you avoid the need for ``DD'' mode when you're installing? Start by making a note of the geometry that your BIOS claims to be using for your disks. You can arrange to have the kernel print this as it boots by specifying -v at the boot: prompt, or using boot -v in the loader. Just before the installer starts, the kernel will print a list of BIOS geometries. Don't panic - wait for the installer to start and then use scrollback to read the numbers. Typically the BIOS disk units will be in the same order that FreeBSD lists your disks, first IDE, then SCSI.

When you're slicing up your disk, check that the disk geometry displayed in the FDISK screen is correct (ie. it matches the BIOS numbers); if it's wrong, use the g key to fix it. You may have to do this if there's absolutely nothing on the disk, or if the disk has been moved from another system. Note that this is only an issue with the disk that you're going to boot from; FreeBSD will sort itself out just fine with any other disks you may have.

Once you've got the BIOS and FreeBSD agreeing about the geometry of the disk, your problems are almost guaranteed to be over, and with no need for ``DD'' mode at all. If, however, you are still greeted with the dreaded ``read error'' message when you try to boot, it's time to cross your fingers and go for it - there's nothing left to lose.

To return a ``dangerously dedicated'' disk for normal PC use, there are basically two options. The first is, you write enough NULL bytes over the MBR to make any subsequent installation believe this to be a blank disk. You can do this for example with

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rda0 count=15

Alternatively, the undocumented DOS ``feature''

    C:\> fdisk /mbr

will to install a new master boot record as well, thus clobbering the BSD bootstrap.

A: The best way is to increase the size of your swap partition, or take advantage of this convenient excuse to add another disk. The general rule of thumb is to have around 2x the swap space as you have main memory. However, if you have a very small amount of main memory you may want to configure swap beyond that. It is also a good idea to configure sufficient swap relative to anticipated future memory upgrades so you do not have to futz with your swap configuration later.

Adding swap onto a separate disk makes things faster than simply adding swap onto the same disk. As an example, if you are compiling source located on one disk, and the swap is on another disk, this is much faster than both swap and compile on the same disk. This is true for SCSI disks specifically.

When you have several disks, configuring a swap partition on each one is usually beneficial, even if you wind up putting swap on a work disk. Typically, each fast disk in your system should have some swap configured. FreeBSD supports up to 4 interleaved swap devices by default. When configuring multiple swap partitions you generally want to make them all about the same size, but people sometimes make their primary swap parition larger in order to accomodate a kernel core dump. Your primary swap partition must be at least as large as main memory in order to be able to accomodate a kernel core.

IDE drives are not able to allow access to both drives on the same channel at the same time (FreeBSD doesn't support mode 4, so all IDE disk I/O is ``programmed''). I would still suggest putting your swap on a separate drive however. The drives are so cheap, it is not worth worrying about.

Swapping over NFS is only recommended if you do not have a local disk to swap to. Swapping over NFS is slow and inefficient in FreeBSD releases prior to 4.x, but reasonably fast in releases greater or equal to 4.0. Even so, it will be limited to the network bandwidth available and puts an additional burden on the NFS server.

Here is an example for 64Mb vn-swap (/usr/swap0, though of course you can use any name that you want).

Make sure your kernel was built with the line

    pseudo-device   vn 1   #Vnode driver (turns a file into a device)

in your config-file. The GENERIC kernel already contains this.

1. create a vn-device

       # cd /dev
       # sh MAKEDEV vn0
   

2. create a swapfile (/usr/swap0)

       # dd if=/dev/zero of=/usr/swap0 bs=1024k count=64
   

3. set proper permissions on (/usr/swap0)

       # chmod 0600 /usr/swap0
   

4. enable the swap file in /etc/rc.conf

       swapfile="/usr/swap0"   # Set to name of swapfile if aux swapfile desired.
   

5. reboot the machine

To enable the swap file immediately, type

    # vnconfig -ce /dev/vn0c /usr/swap0 swap

A: Please have a look at the Handbook entry on printing. It should cover most of your problem. See the Handbook entry on printing.

A: The kbdcontrol program has an option to load a keyboard map file. Under /usr/share/syscons/keymaps are a number of map files. Choose the one relevant to your system and load it.

    # kbdcontrol -l uk.iso

Both the /usr/share/syscons/keymaps and the .kbd extension are assumed by kbdcontrol.

This can be configured in /etc/sysconfig (or rc.conf). See the appropriate comments in this file.

In 2.0.5R and later, everything related to text fonts, keyboard mapping is in /usr/share/examples/syscons.

The following mappings are currently supported:

• Belgian ISO-8859-1

• Brazilian 275 keyboard Codepage 850

• Brazilian 275 keyboard ISO-8859-1

• Danish Codepage 865

• Danish ISO-8859-1

• French ISO-8859-1

• German Codepage 850

• German ISO-8859-1

• Italian ISO-8859-1

• Japanese 106

• Japanese 106x

• Latin American

• Norwegian ISO-8859-1

• Polish ISO-8859-2 (programmer's)

• Russian Codepage 866 (alternative)

• Russian koi8-r (shift)

• Russian koi8-r

• Spanish ISO-8859-1

• Swedish Codepage 850

• Swedish ISO-8859-1

• Swiss-German ISO-8859-1

• United Kingdom Codepage 850

• United Kingdom ISO-8859-1

• United States of America ISO-8859-1

• United States of America dvorak

• United States of America dvorakx

A:

1. Don't turn on quotas on /,

2. Put the quota file on the file system that the quotas are to be enforced on. ie:

       FS      QUOTA FILE
       /usr    /usr/admin/quotas
       /home   /home/admin/quotas
       ...
   

   
   
   

A: The symptom of this is:

    # ccdconfig -C
    ccdconfig: ioctl (CCDIOCSET): /dev/ccd0c: Inappropriate file type or format

This usually happens when you are trying to concatenate the c partitions, which default to type unused. The ccd driver requires the underlying partition type to be FS_BSDFFS. Edit the disklabel of the disks you are trying to concatenate and change the types of partitions to 4.2BSD.

A: The symptom of this is:

    # disklabel ccd0
    (it prints something sensible here, so let's try to edit it)
    # disklabel -e ccd0
    (edit, save, quit)
    disklabel: ioctl DIOCWDINFO: No disk label on disk;
    use "disklabel -r" to install initial label

This is because the disklabel returned by ccd is actually a ``fake'' one that is not really on the disk. You can solve this problem by writing it back explicitly, as in:

    # disklabel ccd0 > /tmp/disklabel.tmp
    # disklabel -Rr ccd0 /tmp/disklabel.tmp
    # disklabel -e ccd0
    (this will work now)

A: Yes, FreeBSD supports System V-style IPC. This includes shared memory, messages and semaphores. You need to add the following lines to your kernel config to enable them.

    options    SYSVSHM
    options    SYSVSHM          # enable shared memory   
    options    SYSVSEM          # enable for semaphores
    options    SYSVMSG          # enable for messaging

Recompile and install your kernel.

A: The sendmail configuration that ships with FreeBSD is suited for sites that connect directly to the Internet. Sites that wish to exchange their mail via UUCP must install another sendmail configuration file.

Tweaking /etc/sendmail.cf manually is considered something for purists. Sendmail version 8 comes with a new approach of generating config files via some m4 preprocessing, where the actual hand-crafted configuration is on a higher abstraction level. You should use the configuration files under /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf

If you didn't install your system with full sources, the sendmail config stuff has been broken out into a separate source distribution tarball just for you. Assuming you've got your CD-ROM mounted, do:

    # cd /cdrom/src
    # cat scontrib.?? | tar xzf - -C /usr/src contrib/sendmail

Don't panic, this is only a few hundred kilobytes in size. The file README in the cf directory can serve as a basic introduction to m4 configuration.

For UUCP delivery, you are best advised to use the mailertable feature. This constitutes a database that sendmail can use to base its routing decision upon.

First, you have to create your .mc file. The directory /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf is the home of these files. Look around, there are already a few examples. Assuming you have named your file foo.mc, all you need to do in order to convert it into a valid sendmail.cf is:

    # cd /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf/cf
    # make foo.cf
    # cp foo.cf /etc/sendmail.cf

A typical .mc file might look like:

    include(`../m4/cf.m4')
    VERSIONID(`Your version number')
    OSTYPE(bsd4.4)
    
    FEATURE(nodns)
    FEATURE(nocanonify)
    FEATURE(mailertable)
    
    define(`UUCP_RELAY', your.uucp.relay)
    define(`UUCP_MAX_SIZE', 200000)
    
    MAILER(local)
    MAILER(smtp)
    MAILER(uucp)
    
    Cw    your.alias.host.name
    Cw    youruucpnodename.UUCP

The nodns and nocanonify features will prevent any usage of the DNS during mail delivery. The UUCP_RELAY clause is needed for bizarre reasons, don't ask. Simply put an Internet hostname there that is able to handle .UUCP pseudo-domain addresses; most likely, you will enter the mail relay of your ISP there.

Once you've got this, you need this file called /etc/mailertable. A typical example of this gender again:

    #
    # makemap hash /etc/mailertable.db < /etc/mailertable
    #
    horus.interface-business.de   uucp-dom:horus
    .interface-business.de        uucp-dom:if-bus
    interface-business.de         uucp-dom:if-bus
    .heep.sax.de                  smtp8:%1
    horus.UUCP                    uucp-dom:horus
    if-bus.UUCP                   uucp-dom:if-bus
    .                             uucp-dom:

As you can see, this is part of a real-life file. The first three lines handle special cases where domain-addressed mail should not be sent out to the default route, but instead to some UUCP neighbor in order to ``shortcut'' the delivery path. The next line handles mail to the local Ethernet domain that can be delivered using SMTP. Finally, the UUCP neighbors are mentioned in the .UUCP pseudo-domain notation, to allow for a uucp-neighbor !recipient override of the default rules. The last line is always a single dot, matching everything else, with UUCP delivery to a UUCP neighbor that serves as your universal mail gateway to the world. All of the node names behind the uucp-dom: keyword must be valid UUCP neighbors, as you can verify using the command uuname.

As a reminder that this file needs to be converted into a DBM database file before being usable, the command line to accomplish this is best placed as a comment at the top of the mailertable. You always have to execute this command each time you change your mailertable.

Final hint: if you are uncertain whether some particular mail routing would work, remember the -bt option to sendmail. It starts sendmail in address test mode; simply enter 0 , followed by the address you wish to test for the mail routing. The last line tells you the used internal mail agent, the destination host this agent will be called with, and the (possibly translated) address. Leave this mode by typing Control-D.

    % sendmail -bt
    ADDRESS TEST MODE (ruleset 3 NOT automatically invoked)
    Enter <ruleset> <address>
    > 0 foo@interface-business.de
    rewrite: ruleset  0   input: foo @ interface-business . de
    ...
    rewrite: ruleset  0 returns: $# uucp-dom $@ if-bus $: foo \
    < @ interface-business . de >
    > ^D

A: If you've got a statically assigned IP number, you should not need to adjust anything from the default. Set your host name up as your assigned internet name and sendmail will do the rest.

If you've got a dynamically assigned IP number and use a dialup ppp connection to the internet, you will probably be given a mailbox on your ISPs mail server. Lets assume your ISPs domain is myISP.com, and that your user name is user. Lets also assume you've called your machine bsd.home and that your ISP has told you that you may use relay.myISP.com as a mail relay.

In order to retrieve mail from your mailbox, you'll need to install a retrieval agent. Fetchmail is a good choice as it supports many different protocols. Usually, POP3 will be provided by your ISP. If you've chosen to use user-ppp, you can automatically fetch your mail when a connection to the 'net is established with the following entry in /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup:

    MYADDR:
      !bg su user -c fetchmail

If you are using sendmail (as shown below) to deliver mail to non-local accounts, put the command

      !bg su user -c "sendmail -q"

after the above shown entry. This forces sendmail to process your mailqueue as soon as the connection to the 'net is established.

I'm assuming that you have an account for user on bsd.home. In the home directory of user on bsd.home, create a .fetchmailrc file:

    poll myISP.com protocol pop3 fetchall pass MySecret

Needless to say, this file should not be readable by anyone except user as it contains the password MySecret.

In order to send mail with the correct from: header, you must tell sendmail to use <user@myISP.com> rather than <user@bsd.home>. You may also wish to tell sendmail to send all mail via relay.myISP.com, allowing quicker mail transmission.

The following .mc file should suffice:

    VERSIONID(`bsd.home.mc version 1.0')
    OSTYPE(bsd4.4)dnl
    FEATURE(nouucp)dnl
    MAILER(local)dnl
    MAILER(smtp)dnl
    Cwlocalhost
    Cwbsd.home
    MASQUERADE_AS(`myISP.com')dnl
    FEATURE(allmasquerade)dnl
    FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
    FEATURE(nocanonify)dnl
    FEATURE(nodns)dnl
    define(SMART_HOST, `relay.myISP.com')
    Dmbsd.home
    define(`confDOMAIN_NAME',`bsd.home')dnl
    define(`confDELIVERY_MODE',`deferred')dnl

Refer to the previous section for details of how to turn this .mc file into a sendmail.cf file. Also, don't forget to restart sendmail after updating sendmail.cf.

A: Don't Panic! Simply restart the system, type boot -s at the Boot: prompt (just -s for FreeBSD releases before 3.2) to enter Single User mode. At the question about the shell to use, hit ENTER. You'll be dropped to a # prompt. Enter mount -u / to remount your root filesystem read/write, then run mount -a to remount all the filesystems. Run passwd root to change the root password then run exit to continue booting.

A: If you are using syscons (the default console driver) in FreeBSD 2.2.7-RELEASE or later, build and install a new kernel with the line

    options SC_DISABLE_REBOOT

in the configuration file. If you use the PCVT console driver in FreeBSD 2.2.5-RELEASE or later, use the following kernel configuration line instead:

    options PCVT_CTRL_ALT_DEL

For older versions of FreeBSD, edit the keymap you are using for the console and replace the boot keywords with nop. The default keymap is /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/us.iso.kbd. You may have to instruct /etc/rc.conf to load this keymap explicitly for the change to take effect. Of course if you are using an alternate keymap for your country, you should edit that one instead.

A: Simply use this perl command:

    % perl -i.bak -npe 's/\r\n/\n/g' file ...

file is the file(s) to process. The modification is done in-place, with the original file stored with a .bak extension.

Alternatively you can use the tr command:

    % tr -d '\r' < dos-text-file > unix-file

dos-text-file is the file containing DOS text while unix-file will contain the converted output. This can be quite a bit faster than using perl.

A: Use killall.

A: The error comes from the Kerberos distributed authentication system. The problem isn't fatal but annoying. You can either run su with the -K option, or uninstall Kerberos as described in the next question.

A: To remove Kerberos from the system, reinstall the bin distribution for the release you are running. If you have the CDROM, you can mount the cd (we'll assume on /cdrom) and run

    # cd /cdrom/bin
    # ./install.sh

A: If you have lots of telnet, ssh, X, or screen users, you'll probably run out of pseudoterminals. Here's how to add more:

1. Build and install a new kernel with the line

       pseudo-device pty 256
   

   in the configuration file.

2. Run the commands

       # cd /dev
       # sh MAKEDEV pty{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}
   

   to make 256 device nodes for the new terminals.

3. Edit /etc/ttys and add lines for each of the 256 terminals. They should match the form of the existing entries, i.e. they look like

       ttyqc none network
   

   The order of the letter designations is tty[pqrsPQRS][0-9a-v], using a regular expression.

4. Reboot the system with the new kernel and you're ready to go.

A: There is no snd device. The name is used as a shorthand for the various devices that make up the FreeBSD sound driver, such as mixer, sequencer, and dsp.

To create these devices you should

    # cd /dev
    # sh MAKEDEV snd0

A: Go into single user mode and than back to multi user mode.

On the console do:

    # shutdown now
    (Note: without -r or -h)
    
    # return
    # exit

A: ``Sandbox'' is a security term. It can mean two things:

• A process which is placed inside a set of virtual walls that are designed to prevent someone who breaks into the process from being able to break into the wider system.

  The process is said to be able to play inside the walls. That is, nothing the process does in regards to executing code is supposed to be able to breech the walls so you do not have to do a detailed audit of its code to be able to say certain things about its security.

  The walls might be a userid, for example. This is the definition used in the security and named man pages.

  Take the ntalk service, for example (see /etc/inetd.conf). This service used to run as userid root. Now it runs as userid tty. The tty user is a sandbox designed to make it more difficult for someone who has successfully hacked into the system via ntalk from being able to hack beyond that user id.

• A process which is placed inside a simulation of the machine. This is more hard-core. Basically it means that someone who is able to break into the process may believe that he can break into the wider machine but is, in fact, only breaking into a simulation of that machine and not modifying any real data.

  The most common way to accomplish this is to build a simulated environment in a subdirectory and then run the processes in that directory chroot'd (i.e. / for that process is this directory, not the real / of the system).

  Another common use is to mount an underlying filesystem read-only and then create a filesystem layer on top of it that gives a process a seemingly writeable view into that filesystem. The process may believe it is able to write to those files, but only the process sees the effects - other processes in the system do not, necessarily.

  An attempt is made to make this sort of sandbox so transparent that the user (or hacker) does not realize that he is sitting in it.

UNIX implements two core sanboxes. One is at the process level, and one is at the userid level.

Every UNIX process is completely firewalled off from every other UNIX process. One process can not modify the address space of another. This is unlike Windows where a process can easily overwrite the address space of any other, leading to a crash.

A UNIX process is owned by a patricular userid. If the userid is not the root user, it serves to firewall the process off from processes owned by other users. The userid is also used to firewall off on-disk data.

A: Ordinary users can be permitted to mount devices. Here is how:

Users can now mount /dev/fd0 onto a directory that they own:

    %  mkdir ~/my-mount-point
    %  mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 ~/my-mount-point

Unmounting the device is simple:

    % umount ~/my-mount-point

Enabling vfs.usermount, however, has negative security implications. A better way to access MSDOS formatted media is to use the mtools package in the ports collection.

A: The best way is to reinstall the OS on the new disk, then move the user data over. This is highly recommended if you've been tracking -stable for more than one release, or have updated a release instead of installing a new one. You can install booteasy on both disks with boot0cfg(8), and dual boot them until you are happy with the new configuration. Skip the next paragraph to find out how to move the data after doing this.

Should you decide not to do a fresh install, you need to partition and label the new disk with either /stand/sysinstall, or fdisk(8) and disklabel(8). You should also install booteasy on both disks with boot0cfg(8), so that you can dual boot to the old or new system after the copying is done. See the formatting-media tutorial for details on this process.

Now you've got the new disk set up, and are ready to move the data. Unfortunately, you can't just blindly copy the data. Things like device files (in /dev) and symbolic links tend to screw that up. You need to use tools that understand these things, which means dump(8) and tar(1). I recommend doing the data moves in single user mode, but it's not required.

You should never use anything but dump(8) and restore(8) to move the root file system. The tar(1) command may work - then again, it may not. You should also use dump(8) and restore(8) if you are moving a single partition to another empty partition. The sequence of steps to use dump to move a partitions data to a new partition is:

For example, if you are going to move root to /dev/ad1s1a, with /mnt as the temporary mount point, it's:

    # newfs /dev/ad1s1a
    # mount /dev/ad1s1a
    # cd /mnt
    # dump 0uaf - / | restore xf -

If you are going to rearrange your partitions - say, splitting one into two, or combing two into one, you may find yourself needing to move everything under a subdirectory to a new location. Since dump(8) works with file systems, it can't do this. So you use tar(1). The general command to move /old to /new for tar(1) is:

    # (cd /old; tar cf - .) | (cd /new; tar xpf -)

If /old has file systems mounted on that, and you don't want to move that data or unmount them, you just add the 'l' flag to the first tar(1):

    # (cd /old; tar clf - .) | (cd /new; tar xpf -).

You might prefer cpio(1), pax(1) or cpdup (in ports/sysutils/cpdup) to tar.

A: The easiest way is to simply specify that you want to run X during the installation process.

Then read and follow the documentation on the xf86config tool, which assists you in configuring XFree86(tm) for your particular graphics card/mouse/etc.

You may also wish to investigate the Xaccel server. See the section on Xi Graphics or Metro Link for more details.

A: If you are using syscons (the default console driver), you can configure FreeBSD to support a mouse pointer on each virtual screen. In order to avoid conflicting with X, syscons supports a virtual device called /dev/sysmouse. All mouse events received from the real mouse device are written to the sysmouse device via moused. If you wish to use your mouse on one or more virtual consoles, and use X, see Q: Q: and set up moused.

Then edit /etc/XF86Config and make sure you have the following lines.

    Section         Pointer
    Protocol        "SysMouse"
    Device          "/dev/sysmouse"
    .....

The above example is for XFree86 3.3.2 or later. For earlier versions, the Protocol should be MouseSystems.

Some people prefer to use /dev/mouse under X. To make this work, /dev/mouse should be linked to /dev/sysmouse:

    # cd /dev
    # rm -f mouse
    # ln -s sysmouse mouse

A: Yes. But you need to customize X client programs. See Colas Nahaboo's web page (http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll/) .

If you want to use the imwheel program, just follow these simple steps.

1. Translate the Wheel Events

   The imwheel program works by translating mouse button 4 and mouse button 5 events into key events. Thus, you have to get the mouse driver to translate mouse wheel events to button 4 and 5 events. There are two ways of doing this, the first way is to have moused(8) do the translation. The second way is for the X server itself to do the event translation.

   1. Using moused(8) to Translate Wheel Events

      To have moused(8) perform the event translations, simply add -z 4 to the command line used to start moused(8). For example, if you normally start moused(8) via moused -p /dev/psm0 you would start it by entering moused -p /dev/psm0 -z 4 instead. If you start moused(8) automatically during bootup via /etc/rc.conf, you can simply add -z 4 to the moused_flags variable in /etc/rc.conf.

      You now need to tell X that you have a 5 button mouse. To do this, simply add the line Buttons 5 to the ``Pointer'' section of /etc/XF86Config. For example, you might have the following ``Pointer'' section in /etc/XF86Config.

      Example 8-1. ``Pointer'' Section for Wheeled Mouse in XF86Config with moused Translation

          Section "Pointer"
             Protocol        "SysMouse"
             Device          "/dev/sysmouse"
             Buttons         5
          EndSection
                              
      

   2. Using Your X Server to Translate the Wheel Events

      If you aren't running moused(8), or if you don't want moused(8) to translate your wheel events, you can have the X server do the event translation instead. This requires a couple of modifications to your /etc/XF86Config file. First, you need to choose the proper protocol for your mouse. Most wheeled mice use the ``IntelliMouse'' protocol. However, XFree86 does support other protocols, such as ``MouseManPlusPS/2'' for the Logitech MouseMan+ mice. Once you have chosen the protocol you will use, you need to add a Protocol line to the ``Pointer'' section.

      Secondly, you need to tell the X server to remap wheel scroll events to mouse buttons 4 and 5. This is done with the ZAxisMapping option.

      For example, if you aren't using moused(8), and you have an IntelliMouse attached to the PS/2 mouse port you would use the following in /etc/XF86Config.

      Example 8-2. ``Pointer'' Section for Wheeled Mouse in XF86Config with X Server Translation

          Section "Pointer"
             Protocol        "IntelliMouse"
             Device          "/dev/psm0"
             ZAxisMapping    4 5
          EndSection
                              
      

2. Install imwheel

   Next, install imwheel from the Ports collection. It can be found in the x11 category. This program will map the wheel events from your mouse into keyboard events. For example, it might send Page Up to a program when you scroll the wheel forwards. Imwheel uses a configuration file to map the wheel events to keypresses so that it can send different keys to different applications. The default imwheel configuration file is installed in /usr/X11R6/etc/imwheelrc. You can copy it to ~/.imwheelrc and then edit it if you wish to customize imwheel's configuration. The format of the configuration file is documented in imwheel(1).

3. Configure Emacs to Work with Imwheel (optional)

   If you use emacs or Xemacs, then you need to add a small section to your ~/.emacs file. For emacs, add the following:

   Example 8-3. Emacs Configuration for Imwheel

       ;;; For imwheel
       (setq imwheel-scroll-interval 3)
       (defun imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines ()
         (interactive)
         (scroll-down imwheel-scroll-interval))
       (defun imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines ()
         (interactive)
         (scroll-up imwheel-scroll-interval))
       (global-set-key [?\M-\C-\)] 'imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines)
       (global-set-key [?\M-\C-\(] 'imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines)
       ;;; end imwheel section
                       
   

   For Xemacs, add the following to your ~/.emacs file instead:

   Example 8-4. Xemacs Configuration for Imwheel

       ;;; For imwheel
       (setq imwheel-scroll-interval 3)
       (defun imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines ()
         (interactive)
         (scroll-down imwheel-scroll-interval))
       (defun imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines ()
         (interactive)
         (scroll-up imwheel-scroll-interval))
       (define-key global-map [(control meta \))] 'imwheel-scroll-up-some-lines)
       (define-key global-map [(control meta \()] 'imwheel-scroll-down-some-lines)
       ;;; end imwheel section
                       
   

4. Run Imwheel

   You can just type imwheel in an xterm to start it up once it is installed. It will background itself and take effect immediately. If you want to always use imwheel, simply add it to your .xinitrc or .xsession file. You can safely ignore any warnings imwheel displays about PID files. Those warnings only apply to the Linux version of imwheel.

A: Try turning off the Num Lock key.

If your Num Lock key is on by default at boot-time, you may add the following line in the Keyboard section of the XF86Config file.

    # Let the server do the NumLock processing.  This should only be
    # required when using pre-R6 clients
        ServerNumLock

A: Virtual consoles, put simply, enable you to have several simultaneous sessions on the same machine without doing anything complicated like setting up a network or running X.

When the system starts, it will display a login prompt on the monitor after displaying all the boot messages. You can then type in your login name and password and start working (or playing!) on the first virtual console.

At some point, you will probably wish to start another session, perhaps to look at documentation for a program you are running or to read your mail while waiting for an FTP transfer to finish. Just do Alt-F2 (hold down the Alt key and press the F2 key), and you will find a login prompt waiting for you on the second ``virtual console''! When you want to go back to the original session, do Alt-F1.

The default FreeBSD installation has three virtual consoles enabled (8 starting with 3.3-RELEASE), and Alt-F1, Alt-F2, and Alt-F3 will switch between these virtual consoles.

To enable more of them, edit /etc/ttys and add entries for ttyv4 to ttyvc after the comment on ``Virtual terminals'':

    # Edit the existing entry for ttyv3 in /etc/ttys and change
    # "off" to "on".
    ttyv3   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv4   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv5   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv6   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv7   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv8   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyv9   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyva   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure
    ttyvb   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on secure

Use as many or as few as you want. The more virtual terminals you have, the more resources that are used; this can be important if you have 8MB RAM or less. You may also want to change the secure to insecure.

The easiest way to disable a console is by turning it off. For example, if you had the full 12 terminal allocation mentioned above and you wanted to run X, you would change settings for virtual terminal 12 from:

    ttyvb   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  on  secure

to:

    ttyvb   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  off secure

If your keyboard has only ten function keys, you would end up with:

    ttyv9   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  off secure
    ttyva   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  off secure
    ttyvb   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         cons25  off secure

(You could also just delete these lines.)

Once you have edited /etc/ttys, the next step is to make sure that you have enough virtualterminal devices. The easiest way to do this is:

    # cd /dev
    # sh MAKEDEV vty12

Next, the easiest (and cleanest) way to activate the virtual consoles is to reboot. However, if you really don't want to reboot, you can just shut down the X Window system and execute (as root):

    # kill -HUP 1

It's imperative that you completely shut down X Window if it is running, before running this command. If you don't, your system will probably appear to hang/lock up after executing the kill command.

A: If the console is currently displaying X Window, you can use Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc. to switch to a virtual console. Note, however, that once you've switched away from X Window to a virtual terminal, you may use only the Alt- function key to switch to another virtual terminal or back to X Window. You do not need to also press the Ctrl key. If you use the control key to switch back to X on some older releases, you can find your text console stuck in ``control-lock'' mode. Tap the control key to wake it up again.

A: There are two schools of thought on how to start xdm. One school starts xdm from /etc/ttys using the supplied example, while the other simply runs xdm from rc.local or from a X.sh script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d. Both are equally valid, and one may work in situations where the other doesn't. In both cases the result is the same: X will popup a graphical login: prompt.

The ttys method has the advantage of documenting which vty X will start on and passing the responsibility of restarting the X server on logout to init. The rc.local method makes it easy to kill xdm if there is a problem starting the X server.

If loaded from rc.local, xdm should be started without any arguments (i.e., as a daemon). xdm must start AFTER getty runs, or else getty and xdm will conflict, locking out the console. The best way around this is to have the script sleep 10 seconds or so then launch xdm.

If you are to start xdm from /etc/ttys, there still is a chance of conflict between xdm and getty. One way to avoid this is to add the vt number in the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers file.

    :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X vt4

The above example will direct the X server to run in /dev/ttyv3. Note the number is offset by one. The X server counts the vty from one, whereas the FreeBSD kernel numbers the vty from zero.

A: If you start X with startx, the permissions on /dev/console will not get changed, resulting in things like xterm -C and xconsolenot working.

This is because of the way console permissions are set by default. On a multi-user system, one doesn't necessarily want just any user to be able to write on the system console. For users who are logging directly onto a machine with a VTY, the fbtab file exists to solve such problems.

In a nutshell, make sure an uncommented line of the form

    /dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console

is in /etc/fbtab and it will ensure that whomever logs in on /dev/ttyv0 will own the console.

A: Your mouse and the mouse driver may have somewhat become out of synchronization.

In versions 2.2.5 and earlier, switching away from X to a virtual terminal and getting back to X again may make them re-synchronized. If the problem occurs often, you may add the following option in your kernel configuration file and recompile it.

    options PSM_CHECKSYNC

See the section on building a kernel if you've no experience with building kernels.

With this option, there should be less chance of synchronization problem between the mouse and the driver. If, however, you still see the problem, click any mouse button while holding the mouse still to re-synchronize the mouse and the driver.

Note that unfortunately this option may not work with all the systems and voids the ``tap'' feature of the ALPS GlidePoint device attached to the PS/2 mouse port.

In versions 2.2.6 and later, synchronization check is done in a slightly better way and is standard in the PS/2 mouse driver. It should even work with GlidePoint. (As the check code has become a standard feature, PSM_CHECKSYNC option is not available in these versions.) However, in rare case the driver may erroneously report synchronization problem and you may see the kernel message:

    psmintr: out of sync (xxxx != yyyy)

and find your mouse doesn't seem to work properly.

If this happens, disable the synchronization check code by setting the driver flags for the PS/2 mouse driver to 0x100. Enter UserConfig by giving the -c option at the boot prompt:

    boot: -c

Then, in the UserConfig command line, type:

    UserConfig> flags psm0 0x100
    UserConfig> quit

A: There have been some reports that certain model of PS/2 mouse from MouseSystems works only if it is put into the ``high resolution'' mode. Otherwise, the mouse cursor may jump to the upper-left corner of the screen every so often.

Unfortunately there is no workaround for versions 2.0.X and 2.1.X. In versions 2.2 through 2.2.5, apply the following patch to /sys/i386/isa/psm.c and rebuild the kernel. See the section on building a kernel if you've no experience with building kernels.

    @@ -766,6 +766,8 @@
         if (verbose >= 2)
             log(LOG_DEBUG, "psm%d: SET_DEFAULTS return code:%04x\n",
                 unit, i);
    +    set_mouse_resolution(sc->kbdc, PSMD_RES_HIGH);
    +
     #if 0
         set_mouse_scaling(sc->kbdc);    /* 1:1 scaling */
         set_mouse_mode(sc->kbdc);       /* stream mode */

In versions 2.2.6 or later, specify the flags 0x04 to the PS/2 mouse driver to put the mouse into the high resolution mode. Enter UserConfig by giving the -c option at the boot prompt:

    boot: -c

Then, in the UserConfig command line, type:

    UserConfig> flags psm0 0x04
    UserConfig> quit

See the previous section for another possible cause of mouse problems.

A: Imake.tmpl is part of the Imake package, a standard X application building tool. Imake.tmpl, as well as several header files that are required to build X apps, is contained in the X prog distribution. You can install this from sysinstall or manually from the X distribution files.

A: Run the command xmodmap -e "pointer = 3 2 1" from your .xinitrc or .xsession.

A: Just prior to the release of FreeBSD 3.1, a new feature was added to allow the display of ``splash'' screens during the boot messages. The splash screens currently must be a 256 color bitmap (*.BMP) or ZSoft PCX (*.PCX) file. In addition, they must have a resolution of 320x200 or less to work on standard VGA adapters. If you compile VESA support into your kernel, then you can use larger bitmaps up to 1024x768. Note that VESA support requires the VM86 kernel option to be compiled into the kernel. The actual VESA support can either be compiled directly into the kernel with the VESA kernel config option or by loading the VESA kld module during bootup.

To use a splash screen, you need to modify the startup files that control the boot process for FreeBSD. The files for this changed prior to the release of FreeBSD 3.2, so there are now two ways of loading a splash screen:

• FreeBSD 3.1

  The first step is to find a bitmap version of your splash screen. Release 3.1 only supports Windows bitmap splash screens. Once you've found your splash screen of choice copy it to /boot/splash.bmp. Next, you need to have a /boot/loader.rc file that contains the following lines:

      load kernel
      load -t splash_image_data /boot/splash.bmp
      load splash_bmp
      autoboot
  

• FreeBSD 3.2+

  In addition to adding support for PCX splash screens, FreeBSD 3.2 includes a nicer way of configuring the boot process. If you wish, you can use the method listed above for FreeBSD 3.1. If you do and you want to use PCX, replace splash_bmp with splash_pcx. If, on the other hand, you want to use the newer boot configuration, you need to create a /boot/loader.rc file that contains the following lines:

      include /boot/loader.4th
      start
  

  and a /boot/loader.conf that contains the following:

      splash_bmp_load="YES"
      bitmap_load="YES"
  

  This assumes you are using /boot/splash.bmp for your splash screen. If you'd rather use a PCX file, copy it to /boot/splash.pcx, create a /boot/loader.rc as instructed above, and create a /boot/loader.conf that contains:

      splash_pcx_load="YES"
      bitmap_load="YES"
      bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"
  

Now all you need is a splash screen. For that you can surf on over to the gallery at http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.

A: Yes. All you need to do is use xmodmap(1) to define what function you wish them to perform.

Assuming all ``Windows(tm)'' keyboards are standard then the keycodes for the 3 keys are

• 115 - Windows(tm) key, between the left-hand Ctrl and Alt keys

• 116 - Windows(tm) key, to the right of the Alt-Gr key

• 117 - Menu key, to the left of the right-hand Ctrl key

To have the left Windows(tm) key print a comma, try this.

    # xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = comma"

You will probably have to re-start your window manager to see the result.

To have the Windows(tm) key-mappings enabled automatically everytime you start X either put the xmodmap commands in your ~/.xinitrc file or, preferably, create a file ~/.xmodmaprc and include the xmodmap options, one per line, then add the line

    xmodmap $HOME/.xmodmaprc

to your ~/.xinitrc.

For example, I have mapped the 3 keys to be F13, F14, and F15 respectively. This makes it easy to map them to useful functions within applications or your window manager.

To do this put the following in ~/.xmodmaprc.

    keycode 115 = F13
    keycode 116 = F14
    keycode 117 = F15

I use fvwm2 and have mapped the keys so that F13 iconifies (or de-iconifies) the window the cursor is in, F14 brings the window the cursor is in to the front or, if it is already at the front, pushes it to the back, and F15 pops up the main Workplace (application) menu even if the cursor is not on the desktop, which is useful if you don't have any part of the desktop visible (and the logo on the key matches its functionality).

The entries in my ~/.fvwmrc which map the keys this way are:

    Key F13        FTIWS    A        Iconify
    Key F14        FTIWS    A        RaiseLower
    Key F15        A        A        Menu Workplace Nop

A: ``Diskless booting'' means that the FreeBSD box is booted over a network, and reads the necessary files from a server instead of its hard disk. For full details, please read the Handbook entry on diskless booting

A: Internet standards and good engineering practice prohibit us from providing packet forwarding by default in FreeBSD. You can however enable this feature by changing the following variable to YES in rc.conf:

    gateway_enable=YES          # Set to YES if this host will be a gateway

This option will put the sysctl variable net.inet.ip.forwarding to 1.

In most cases, you will also need to run a routing process to tell other systems on your network about your router; FreeBSD comes with the standard BSD routing daemon routed, or for more complex situations you may want to try GaTeD (available from http://www.gated.org/ ) which supports FreeBSD as of 3_5Alpha7.

It is our duty to warn you that, even when FreeBSD is configured in this way, it does not completely comply with the Internet standard requirements for routers; however, it comes close enough for ordinary usage.

A: Typically, people who ask this question have two PC's at home, one with FreeBSD and one with Win95; the idea is to use the FreeBSD box to connect to the Internet and then be able to access the Internet from the Windows95 box through the FreeBSD box. This is really just a special case of the previous question.

... and the answer is yes! In FreeBSD 3.x, user-mode ppp contains a -nat option. If you run ppp with the -nat, set gateway_enable to YES in /etc/rc.conf, and configure your Windows machine correctly, this should work fine.

More detailed information about setting this up can be found in the Pedantic PPP Primer by Steve Sims.

If you are using kernel-mode ppp, or have an Ethernet connection to the Internet, you will have to use natd. Please look at the natd section of this FAQ.

A: There is a conflict between the cdefs.h file in the distribution and the one shipped with FreeBSD. Just remove compat/include/sys/cdefs.h.

A: Yes. See the man pages for slattach, sliplogin, pppd and ppp. pppd and ppp provide support for both incoming and outgoing connections. Sliplogin deals exclusively with incoming connections and slattach deals exclusively with outgoing connections.

These programs are described in the following sections of the handbook:

• Handbook entry on SLIP (server side)

• Handbook entry on SLIP (client side)

• Handbook entry on PPP (kernel version)

• Handbook entry on PPP (user-mode version)

If you only have access to the Internet through a ``shell account'', you may want to have a look at the slirp package. It can provide you with (limited) access to services such as ftp and http direct from your local machine.

A: If you have a local subnet (one or more local machines), but have been allocated only a single IP number from your Internet provider (or even if you receive a dynamic IP number), you may want to look at the natd program. natd allows you to connect an entire subnet to the internet using only a single IP number.

The ppp program has similar functionality built in via the -nat switch. The alias library is used in both cases.

A: In the Berkeley networking framework, network interfaces are only directly accessible by kernel code. Please see the /etc/rc.network file and the manual pages for the various network programs mentioned there for more information. If this leaves you totally confused, then you should pick up a book describing network administration on another BSD-related operating system; with few significant exceptions, administering networking on FreeBSD is basically the same as on SunOS 4.0 or Ultrix.

A: Add netmask 0xffffffff to your ifconfig command-line like the following:

    # ifconfig ed0 alias 204.141.95.2 netmask 0xffffffff

A: If you want to use the other ports, you'll have to specify an additional parameter on the ifconfig command line. The default port is link0. To use the AUI port instead of the BNC one, use link2. These flags should be specified using the ifconfig_* variables in /etc/rc.conf.

A: Certain PC network cards are better than others (to put it mildly) and can sometimes cause problems with network intensive applications like NFS.

See the Handbook entry on NFS for more information on this topic.

A: Some versions of the Linux NFS code only accept mount requests from a privileged port; try

    # mount -o -P linuxbox:/blah /mnt

A: Sun workstations running SunOS 4.X only accept mount requests from a privileged port; try

    # mount -o -P sunbox:/blah /mnt

A: Try disabling the TCP extensions in /etc/rc.conf by changing the following variable to NO:

    tcp_extensions=NO

Xylogic's Annex boxes are also broken in this regard and you must use the above change to connect thru them.

A: Multicast host operations are fully supported in FreeBSD 2.0 and later by default. If you want your box to run as a multicast router, you will need to recompile your kernel with the MROUTING option and run mrouted. FreeBSD 2.2 and later will start mrouted at boot time if the flag mrouted_enable is set to "YES" in /etc/rc.conf.

MBONE tools are available in their own ports category, mbone. If you are looking for the conference tools vic and vat, look there!

For more information, see the Mbone Information Web.

A: Here is a list compiled by Glen Foster, with some more modern additions:

    Vendor          Model
    ----------------------------------------------
    ASUS            PCI-L101-TB
    Accton          ENI1203
    Cogent          EM960PCI
    Compex          ENET32-PCI
    D-Link          DE-530
    Dayna           DP1203, DP2100
    DEC             DE435, DE450
    Danpex          EN-9400P3
    JCIS            Condor JC1260
    Linksys         EtherPCI
    Mylex           LNP101
    SMC             EtherPower 10/100 (Model 9332)
    SMC             EtherPower (Model 8432)
    TopWare         TE-3500P
    Znyx            (2.2.x) ZX312, ZX314, ZX342, ZX345, ZX346, ZX348
                    (3.x) ZX345Q, ZX346Q, ZX348Q, ZX412Q, ZX414, ZX442,
                          ZX444, ZX474, ZX478, ZX212, ZX214 (10mbps/hd)
              

A: You will probably find that the host is actually in a different domain; for example, if you are in foo.bar.edu and you wish to reach a host called mumble in the bar.edu domain, you will have to refer to it by the fully-qualified domain name, mumble.bar.edu, instead of just mumble.

Traditionally, this was allowed by BSD BIND resolvers. However the current version of bind that ships with FreeBSD no longer provides default abbreviations for non-fully qualified domain names other than the domain you are in. So an unqualified host mumble must either be found as mumble.foo.bar.edu, or it will be searched for in the root domain.

This is different from the previous behavior, where the search continued across mumble.bar.edu, and mumble.edu. Have a look at RFC 1535 for why this was considered bad practice, or even a security hole.

As a good workaround, you can place the line

    search foo.bar.edu bar.edu

instead of the previous

    domain foo.bar.edu

into your /etc/resolv.conf file. However, make sure that the search order does not go beyond the ``boundary between local and public administration'', as RFC 1535 calls it.

A: If you have compiled your kernel with the IPFIREWALL option, you need to be aware that the default policy as of 2.1.7R (this actually changed during 2.1-STABLE development) is to deny all packets that are not explicitly allowed.

If you had unintentionally misconfigured your system for firewalling, you can restore network operability by typing the following while logged in as root:

    # ipfw add 65534 allow all from any to any

You can also set firewall_type="open" in /etc/rc.conf.

For further information on configuring a FreeBSD firewall, see the Handbook section.

A: The answer to this depends mostly on your rule set and processor speed. For most applications dealing with ethernet and small rule sets, the answer is, negligible. For those of you that need actual measurements to satisfy your curiosity, read on.

The following measurements were made using 2.2.5-STABLE on a 486-66. IPFW was modified to measure the time spent within the ip_fw_chk routine, displaying the results to the console every 1000 packets.

Two rule sets, each with 1000 rules were tested. The first set was designed to demonstrate a worst case scenario by repeating the rule:

    # ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 55555

This demonstrates worst case by causing most of IPFW's packet check routine to be executed before finally deciding that the packet does not match the rule (by virtue of the port number). Following the 999th iteration of this rule was an allow ip from any to any.

The second set of rules were designed to abort the rule check quickly:

    # ipfw add deny ip from 1.2.3.4 to 1.2.3.4

The nonmatching source IP address for the above rule causes these rules to be skipped very quickly. As before, the 1000th rule was an allow ip from any to any.

The per-packet processing overhead in the former case was approximately 2.703ms/packet, or roughly 2.7 microseconds per rule. Thus the theoretical packet processing limit with these rules is around 370 packets per second. Assuming 10Mbps ethernet and a ~1500 byte packet size, we would only be able to achieve a 55.5% bandwidth utilization.

For the latter case each packet was processed in approximately 1.172ms, or roughly 1.2 microseconds per rule. The theoretical packet processing limit here would be about 853 packets per second, which could consume 10Mbps ethernet bandwidth.

The excessive number of rules tested and the nature of those rules do not provide a real-world scenario -- they were used only to generate the timing information presented here. Here are a few things to keep in mind when building an efficient rule set:

• Place an established rule early on to handle the majority of TCP traffic. Don't put any allow tcp statements before this rule.

• Place heavily triggered rules earlier in the rule set than those rarely used (without changing the permissiveness of the firewall, of course). You can see which rules are used most often by examining the packet counting statistics with ipfw -a l.

A: You can redirect FTP (and other service) request with the socket package, available in the ports tree in category ``sysutils''. Simply replace the service's commandline to call socket instead, like so:

    ftp stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/local/bin/socket socket ftp.foo.com ftp

where ftp.foo.com and ftp are the host and port to redirect to, respectively.

A: There are two bandwidth management tools available for FreeBSD. ALTQ is available for free; Bandwidth Manager from Emerging Technologies is a commercial product.

A: The Berkeley Packet Filter (bpf) driver needs to be enabled before running programs that utilize it. Add this to your kernel config file and build a new kernel:

    pseudo-device bpfilter # Berkeley Packet Filter

Secondly, after rebooting you will have to create the device node. This can be accomplished by a change to the /dev directory, followed by the execution of:

    # sh MAKEDEV bpf0

Please see the handbook's entry on device nodes for more information on creating devices.

A: Use the sharity light package in the ports collection.

A: You should first read the ppp man page and the ppp section of the handbook. Enable logging with the command

    set log Phase Chat Connect Carrier lcp ipcp ccp command

This command may be typed at the ppp command prompt or it may be entered in the /etc/ppp/ppp.conf configuration file (the start of the default section is the best place to put it). Make sure that /etc/syslog.conf contains the lines

    !ppp
    *.* /var/log/ppp.log

and that the file /var/log/ppp.log exists. You can now find out a lot about what's going on from the log file. Don't worry if it doesn't all make sense. If you need to get help from someone, it may make sense to them.

If your version of ppp doesn't understand the set log command, you should download the latest version. It will build on FreeBSD version 2.1.5 and higher.

A: This is usually because your hostname won't resolve. The best way to fix this is to make sure that /etc/hosts is consoluted by your resolver first by editing /etc/host.conf and putting the hosts line first. Then, simply put an entry in /etc/hosts for your local machine. If you have no local network, change your localhost line:

    127.0.0.1        foo.bar.com foo localhost

Otherwise, simply add another entry for your host. Consult the relevant man pages for more details.

You should be able to successfully ping -c1 `hostname` when you're done.

A: First, check that you've got a default route. By running netstat -rn, you should see two entries like this:

    Destination        Gateway            Flags     Refs     Use     Netif Expire
    default            10.0.0.2           UGSc        0        0      tun0
    10.0.0.2           10.0.0.1           UH          0        0      tun0

This is assuming that you've used the addresses from the handbook, the man page or from the ppp.conf.sample file. If you haven't got a default route, it may be because you're running an old version of ppp that doesn't understand the word HISADDR in the ppp.conf file. If your version of ppp is from before FreeBSD 2.2.5, change the

    add 0 0 HISADDR

line to one saying

    add 0 0 10.0.0.2

Another reason for the default route line being missing is that you have mistakenly set up a default router in your /etc/rc.conf file (this file was called /etc/sysconfig prior to release 2.2.2), and you have omitted the line saying

    delete ALL

from ppp.conf. If this is the case, go back to the Final system configuration section of the handbook.

A: This error is usually due to a missing

    MYADDR:
      delete ALL
      add 0 0 HISADDR

section in your /etc/ppp/ppp.linkup file. This is only necessary if you have a dynamic IP address or don't know the address of your gateway. If you're using interactive mode, you can type the following after entering packet mode (packet mode is indicated by the capitalized PPP in the prompt):

    delete ALL
    add 0 0 HISADDR

Refer to the PPP and Dynamic IP addresses section of the handbook for further details.

A: The default ppp timeout is 3 minutes. This can be adjusted with the line

    set timeout NNN

where NNN is the number of seconds of inactivity before the connection is closed. If NNN is zero, the connection is never closed due to a timeout. It is possible to put this command in the ppp.conf file, or to type it at the prompt in interactive mode. It is also possible to adjust it on the fly while the line is active by connecting to ppps server socket using telnet or pppctl. Refer to the ppp man page for further details.

A: If you have Link Quality Reporting (LQR) configured, it is possible that too many LQR packets are lost between your machine and the peer. Ppp deduces that the line must therefore be bad, and disconnects. Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, LQR was enabled by default. It is now disabled by default. LQR can be disabled with the line

    disable lqr

A: Sometimes, on a noisy phone line or even on a line with call waiting enabled, your modem may hang up because it thinks (incorrectly) that it lost carrier.

There's a setting on most modems for determining how tolerant it should be to temporary losses of carrier. On a USR Sportster for example, this is measured by the S10 register in tenths of a second. To make your modem more forgiving, you could add the following send-expect sequence to your dial string:

    set dial "...... ATS10=10 OK ......"

Refer to your modem manual for details.

A: Many people experience hung connections with no apparent explaination. The first thing to establish is which side of the link is hung.

If you are using an external modem, you can simply try using ping to see if the TD light is flashing when you transmit data. If it flashes (and the RD light doesn't), the problem is with the remote end. If TD doesn't flash, the problem is local. With an internal modem, you'll need to use the set server command in your ppp.conf file. When the hang occurs, connect to ppp using pppctl. If your network connection suddenly revives (ppp was revived due to the activity on the diagnostic socket) or if you can't connect (assuming the set socket command succeeded at startup time), the problem is local. If you can connect and things are still hung, enable local async logging with set log local async and use ping from another window or terminal to make use of the link. The async logging will show you the data being transmitted and received on the link. If data is going out and not coming back, the problem is remote.

Having established whether the problem is local or remote, you now have two possibilities:

A: There's very little you can do about this. Most ISPs will refuse to help if you're not running a Microsoft OS. You can enable lqr in your ppp.conf file, allowing ppp to detect the remote failure and hang up, but this detection is relatively slow and therefore not that useful. You may want to avoid telling your ISP that you're running user-ppp....

First, try disabling all local compression by adding the following to your configuration:

    disable pred1 deflate deflate24 protocomp acfcomp shortseq vj
    deny pred1 deflate deflate24 protocomp acfcomp shortseq vj

Then reconnect to ensure that this makes no difference. If things improve or if the problem is solved completely, determine which setting makes the difference through trial and error. This will provide good amunition when you contact your ISP (although it may make it apparent that you're not running a Microsoft product).

Before contacting your ISP, enable async logging locally and wait until the connection hangs again. This may use up quite a bit of disk space. The last data read from the port may be of interest. It is usually ascii data, and may even describe the problem (``Memory fault, core dumped'' ?).

If your ISP is helpful, they should be able to enable logging on their end, then when the next link drop occurs, they may be able to tell you why their side is having a problem. Feel free to send the details to Brian Somers <brian@FreeBSD.org>, or even to ask your ISP to contact me directly.

A: Your best bet here is to rebuild ppp by adding CFLAGS+=-g and STRIP= to the end of the Makefile, then doing a make clean && make && make install. When ppp hangs, find the ppp process id with ps ajxww | fgrep ppp and run gdb ppp PID. From the gdb prompt, you can then use bt to get a stack trace.

Send the results to <brian@Awfulhak.org>.

A: Prior to FreeBSD version 2.2.5, once the link was established, ppp would wait for the peer to initiate the Line Control Protocol (LCP). Many ISPs will not initiate negotiations and expect the client to do so. To force ppp to initiate the LCP, use the following line:

    set openmode active

Note: It usually does no harm if both sides initiate negotiation, so openmode is now active by default. However, the next section explains when it does do some harm.

A: Occasionally, just after connecting, you may see messages in the log that say ``magic is the same''. Sometimes, these messages are harmless, and sometimes one side or the other exits. Most ppp implementations cannot survive this problem, and even if the link seems to come up, you'll see repeated configure requests and configure acknowledgements in the log file until ppp eventually gives up and closes the connection.

This normally happens on server machines with slow disks that are spawning a getty on the port, and executing ppp from a login script or program after login. I've also heard reports of it happening consistently when using slirp. The reason is that in the time taken between getty exiting and ppp starting, the client-side ppp starts sending Line Control Protocol (LCP) packets. Because ECHO is still switched on for the port on the server, the client ppp sees these packets ``reflect'' back.

One part of the LCP negotiation is to establish a magic number for each side of the link so that ``reflections'' can be detected. The protocol says that when the peer tries to negotiate the same magic number, a NAK should be sent and a new magic number should be chosen. During the period that the server port has ECHO turned on, the client ppp sends LCP packets, sees the same magic in the reflected packet and NAKs it. It also sees the NAK reflect (which also means ppp must change its magic). This produces a potentially enormous number of magic number changes, all of which are happily piling into the server's tty buffer. As soon as ppp starts on the server, it's flooded with magic number changes and almost immediately decides it's tried enough to negotiate LCP and gives up. Meanwhile, the client, who no longer sees the reflections, becomes happy just in time to see a hangup from the server.

This can be avoided by allowing the peer to start negotiating with the following line in your ppp.conf file:

    set openmode passive

This tells ppp to wait for the server to initiate LCP negotiations. Some servers however may never initiate negotiations. If this is the case, you can do something like:

    set openmode active 3

This tells ppp to be passive for 3 seconds, and then to start sending LCP requests. If the peer starts sending requests during this period, ppp will immediately respond rather than waiting for the full 3 second period.

A: There is currently an implementation mis-feature in ppp where it doesn't associate LCP, CCP & IPCP responses with their original requests. As a result, if one ppp implementation is more than 6 seconds slower than the other side, the other side will send two additional LCP configuration requests. This is fatal.

Consider two implementations, A and B. A starts sending LCP requests immediately after connecting and B takes 7 seconds to start. When B starts, A has sent 3 LCP REQs. We're assuming the line has ECHO switched off, otherwise we'd see magic number problems as described in the previous section. B sends a REQ, then an ACK to the first of A's REQs. This results in A entering the OPENED state and sending and ACK (the first) back to B. In the meantime, B sends back two more ACKs in response to the two additional REQs sent by A before B started up. B then receives the first ACK from A and enters the OPENED state. A receives the second ACK from B and goes back to the REQ-SENT state, sending another (forth) REQ as per the RFC. It then receives the third ACK and enters the OPENED state. In the meantime, B receives the forth REQ from A, resulting in it reverting to the ACK-SENT state and sending another (second) REQ and (forth) ACK as per the RFC. A gets the REQ, goes into REQ-SENT and sends another REQ. It immediately receives the following ACK and enters OPENED.

This goes on 'till one side figures out that they're getting nowhere and gives up.

The best way to avoid this is to configure one side to be passive - that is, make one side wait for the other to start negotiating. This can be done with the

    set openmode passive

command. Care should be taken with this option. You should also use the

    set stopped N

command to limit the amount of time that ppp waits for the peer to begin negotiations. Alternatively, the

    set openmode active N

command (where N is the number of seconds to wait before starting negotiations) can be used. Check the manual page for details.

A: Prior to version 2.2.5 of FreeBSD, it was possible that your link was disabled shortly after connection due to ppp mis-handling Predictor1 compression negotiation. This would only happen if both sides tried to negotiate different Compression Control Protocols (CCP). This problem is now corrected, but if you're still running an old version of ppp, the problem can be circumvented with the line

    disable pred1

A: When you execute the shell or ! command, ppp executes a shell (or if you've passed any arguements, ppp will execute those arguements). Ppp will wait for the command to complete before continuing. If you attempt to use the ppp link while running the command, the link will appear to have frozen. This is because ppp is waiting for the command to complete.

If you wish to execute commands like this, use the !bg command instead. This will execute the given command in the background, and ppp can continue to service the link.

A: There is no way for ppp to automatically determine that a direct connection has been dropped. This is due to the lines that are used in a null-modem serial cable. When using this sort of connection, LQR should always be enabled with the line

    enable lqr

LQR is accepted by default if negotiated by the peer.

A: If ppp is dialing unexpectedly, you must determine the cause, and set up Dial filters (dfilters) to prevent such dialing.

To determine the cause, use the following line:

    set log +tcp/ip

This will log all traffic through the connection. The next time the line comes up unexpectedly, you will see the reason logged with a convenient timestamp next to it.

You can now disable dialing under these circumstances. Usually, this sort of problem arises due to DNS lookups. To prevent DNS lookups from establishing a connection (this will not prevent ppp from passing the packets through an established connection), use the following:

    set dfilter 1 deny udp src eq 53
    set dfilter 2 deny udp dst eq 53
    set dfilter 3 permit 0/0 0/0

This is not always suitable, as it will effectively break your demand-dial capabilities - most programs will need a DNS lookup before doing any other network related things.

In the DNS case, you should try to determine what is actually trying to resolve a host name. A lot of the time, sendmail is the culprit. You should make sure that you tell sendmail not to do any DNS lookups in its configuration file. See the section on Mail Configuration for details on how to create your own configuration file and what should go into it. You may also want to add the following line to your .mc file:

    define(`confDELIVERY_MODE', `d')dnl

This will make sendmail queue everything until the queue is run (usually, sendmail is invoked with -bd -q30m, telling it to run the queue every 30 minutes) or until a sendmail -q is done (perhaps from your ppp.linkup file).

A: I keep seeing the following errors in my log file:

    CCP: CcpSendConfigReq
    CCP: Received Terminate Ack (1) state = Req-Sent (6)

This is because ppp is trying to negotiate Predictor1 compression, and the peer does not want to negotiate any compression at all. The messages are harmless, but if you wish to remove them, you can disable Predictor1 compression locally too:

    disable pred1

A: Under FreeBSD 2.2.2 and before, there was a bug in the tun driver that prevents incoming packets of a size larger than the tun interface's MTU size. Receipt of a packet greater than the MTU size results in an IO error being logged via syslogd.

The ppp specification says that an MRU of 1500 should always be accepted as a minimum, despite any LCP negotiations, therefore it is possible that should you decrease the MTU to less than 1500, your ISP will transmit packets of 1500 regardless, and you will tickle this non-feature - locking up your link.

The problem can be circumvented by never setting an MTU of less than 1500 under FreeBSD 2.2.2 or before.

A: In order to log all lines of your modem ``conversation'', you must enable the following:

    set log +connect

This will make ppp log everything up until the last requested ``expect'' string.

If you wish to see your connect speed and are using PAP or CHAP (and therefore don't have anything to ``chat'' after the CONNECT in the dial script - no set login script), you must make sure that you instruct ppp to ``expect'' the whole CONNECT line, something like this:

    set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 4 \
      \"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK ATDT\\T TIMEOUT 60 CONNECT \\c \\n"

Here, we get our CONNECT, send nothing, then expect a line-feed, forcing ppp to read the whole CONNECT response.

A: Ppp parses each line in your config files so that it can interpret strings such as set phone "123 456 789" correctly (and realize that the number is actually only one argument. In order to specify a " character, you must escape it using a backslash (\).

When the chat interpreter parses each argument, it re-interprets the argument in order to find any special escape sequences such as \P or \T (see the man page). As a result of this double-parsing, you must remember to use the correct number of escapes.

If you wish to actually send a \ character to (say) your modem, you'd need something like:

    set dial "\"\" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK AT\\\\X OK"

resulting in the following sequence:

    ATZ
    OK
    AT\X
    OK

or

    set phone 1234567
    set dial "\"\" ATZ OK ATDT\\T"

resulting in the following sequence:

    ATZ
    OK
    ATDT1234567

A: Ppp (or any other program for that matter) should never dump core. Because ppp runs with an effective user id of 0, the operating system will not write ppps core image to disk before terminating it. If, however ppp is actually termating due to a segmentation violation or some other signal that normally causes core to be dumped, and you're sure you're using the latest version (see the start of this section), then you should do the following:

    % tar xfz ppp-*.src.tar.gz
    % cd ppp*/ppp
    % echo STRIP= >>Makefile
    % echo CFLAGS+=-g >>Makefile
    % make clean all
    % su
    # make install
    # chmod 555 /usr/sbin/ppp

You will now have a debuggable version of ppp installed. You will have to be root to run ppp as all of its privileges have been revoked. When you start ppp, take a careful note of what your current directory was at the time.

Now, if and when ppp receives the segmentation violation, it will dump a core file called ppp.core. You should then do the following:

    % su
    # gdb /usr/sbin/ppp ppp.core
    (gdb) bt
    .....
    (gdb) f 0
    ....
    (gdb) i args
    ....
    (gdb) l
    .....

All of this information should be given alongside your question, making it possible to diagnose the problem.

If you're familiar with gdb, you may wish to find out some other bits and pieces such as what actually caused the dump and the addresses & values of the relevant variables.

A: This was a known problem with ppp set up to negotiate a dynamic local IP number with the peer in auto mode. It is fixed in the latest version - search the man page for iface.

The problem was that when that initial program calls connect(2), the IP number of the tun interface is assigned to the socket endpoint. The kernel creates the first outgoing packet and writes it to the tun device. Ppp then reads the packet and establishes a connection. If, as a result of ppps dynamic IP assignment, the interface address is changed, the original socket endpoint will be invalid. Any subsequent packets sent to the peer will usually be dropped. Even if they aren't, any responses will not route back to the originating machine as the IP number is no longer owned by that machine.

There are several theoretical ways to approach this problem. It would be nicest if the peer would re-assign the same IP number if possible :-) The current version of ppp does this, but most other implementations don't.

The easiest method from our side would be to never change the tun interface IP number, but instead to change all outgoing packets so that the source IP number is changed from the interface IP to the negotiated IP on the fly. This is essentially what the iface-alias option in the latest version of ppp is doing (with the help of libalias(3) and ppp's -nat switch) - it's maintaining all previous interface addresses and NATing them to the last negotiated address.

Another alternative (and probably the most reliable) would be to implement a system call that changes all bound sockets from one IP to another. Ppp would use this call to modify the sockets of all existing programs when a new IP number is negotiated. The same system call could be used by dhcp clients when they are forced to re-bind() their sockets.

Yet another possibility is to allow an interface to be brought up without an IP number. Outgoing packets would be given an IP number of 255.255.255.255 up until the first SIOCAIFADDR ioctl is done. This would result in fully binding the socket. It would be up to ppp to change the source IP number, but only if it's set to 255.255.255.255, and only the IP number and IP checksum would need to change. This, however is a bit of a hack as the kernel would be sending bad packets to an improperly configured interface, on the assumption that some other mechanism is capable of fixing things retrospectively.

A: The reason games and the like don't work when libalias is in use is that the machine on the outside will try to open a connection or send (unsolicited) UDP packets to the machine on the inside. The NAT software doesn't know that it should send these packets to the interior machine.

To make things work, make sure that the only thing running is the software that you're having problems with, then either run tcpdump on the tun interface of the gateway or enable ppp tcp/ip logging (set log +tcp/ip) on the gateway.

When you start the offending software, you should see packets passing through the gateway machine. When something comes back from the outside, it'll be dropped (that's the problem). Note the port number of these packets then shut down the offending software. Do this a few times to see if the port numbers are consistent. If they are, then the following line in the relevant section of /etc/ppp/ppp.conf will make the software functional:

    nat port proto internalmachine:port port

where proto is either tcp or udp, internalmachine is the machine that you want the packets to be sent to and port is the destination port number of the packets.

You won't be able to use the software on other machines without changing the above command, and running the software on two internal machines at the same time is out of the question - after all, the outside world is seeing your entire internal network as being just a single machine.

If the port numbers aren't consistent, there are three more options:

1) Submit support in libalias. Examples of ``special cases'' can be found in /usr/src/lib/libalias/alias_*.c (alias_ftp.c is a good prototype). This usually involves reading certain recognised outgoing packets, identifying the instruction that tells the outside machine to initiate a connection back to the internal machine on a specific (random) port and setting up a ``route'' in the alias table so that the subsequent packets know where to go.

This is the most difficult solution, but it is the best and will make the software work with multiple machines.

2) Use a proxy. The application may support socks5 for example, or (as in the ``cvsup'' case) may have a ``passive'' option that avoids ever requesting that the peer open connections back to the local machine.

3) Redirect everything to the internal machine using nat addr. This is the sledge-hammer approach.

A: Not yet, but this is intended to grow into such a list (if any interest is shown). In each example, internal should be replaced with the IP number of the machine playing the game.

• Asheron's Call

  nat port udp internal :65000 65000

  Manually change the port number within the game to 65000. If you've got a number of machines that you wish to play on assign a unique port number for each (i.e. 65001, 65002, etc) and add a nat port line for each one.

• Half Life

  nat port udp internal:27005 27015

• PCAnywhere 8.0

  nat port udp internal:5632 5632

  nat port tcp internal:5631 5631

• Quake

  nat port udp internal:6112 6112

  Alternatively, you may want to take a look at www.battle.net for Quake proxy support.

• Quake 2

  nat port udp internal:27901 27910

• Red Alert

  nat port udp internal:8675 8675

  nat port udp internal:5009 5009

A: FCS stands for Frame Check Sequence. Each ppp packet has a checksum attached to ensure that the data being received is the data being sent. If the FCS of an incoming packet is incorrect, the packet is dropped and the HDLC FCS count is increased. The HDLC error values can be displayed using the show hdlc command.

If your link is bad (or if your serial driver is dropping packets), you will see the occasional FCS error. This is not usually worth worrying about although it does slow down the compression protocols substantially. If you have an external modem, make sure your cable is properly shielded from interference - this may eradicate the problem.

If your link freezes as soon as you've connected and you see a large number of FCS errors, this may be because your link is not 8 bit clean. Make sure your modem is not using software flow control (XON/XOFF). If your datalink must use software flow control, use the command set accmap 0x000a0000 to tell ppp to escape the ^Q and ^S characters.

Another reason for seeing too many FCS errors may be that the remote end has stopped talking PPP. You may want to enable async logging at this point to determine if the incoming data is actually a login or shell prompt. If you have a shell prompt at the remote end, it's possible to terminate ppp without dropping the line by using the close lcp command (a following term command will reconnect you to the shell on the remote machine.

If nothing in your log file indicates why the link might have been terminated, you should ask the remote administrator (your ISP?) why the session was terminated.

A: Thanks to Michael Wozniak <mwozniak@netcom.ca> for figuring this out and Dan Flemming <danflemming@mac.com> for the Mac solution:

This is due to what's called a ``Black Hole'' router. MacOS and Windows 98 (and maybe other Microsoft OSs) send TCP packets with a requested segment size too big to fit into a PPPoE frame (MTU is 1500 by default for ethernet) and have the ``don't fragment'' bit set (default of TCP) and the Telco router is not sending ICMP ``must fragment'' back to the www site you are trying to load. When the www server is sending you frames that don't fit into the PPPoE pipe the Telco router drops them on the floor and your page doesn't load (some pages/graphics do as they are smaller than a MSS.) This seems to be the default of most Telco PPPoE configurations (if only they knew how to program a router... sigh...)

One fix is to use regedit on your 95/98 boxes to add the following registry entry...

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\NetTrans\0000\MaxMTU
    

It should be a string with a value ``1450'' (more accurately it should be ``1464'' to fit TCP packets into a PPPoE frame perfectly but the ``1450'' gives you a margin of error for other IP protocols you may encounter).

Refer to MS KB # ``Q158474 - Windows TCPIP Registry Entries'' and ``Q120642 - TCPIP & NBT Configuration Parameters for Windows NT '' for more information on changing Windoze MTU to work with a FreeBSD/NAT/PPPoE router.

Unfortunately, MacOS does not provide an interface for changing TCP/IP settings. However, there is commercial software available, such as OTAdvancedTuner (OT for OpenTransport, the MacOS TCP/IP stack) by Sustainable Softworks, that will allow users to customize TCP/IP settings. MacOS NAT users should select ip_interface_MTU from the drop-down menu, enter 1450 instead of 1500 in the box, click the box next to Save as Auto Configure, and click Make Active.

A: If all else fails, send as much information as you can, including your config files, how you're starting ppp, the relevant parts of your log file and the output of the netstat -rn command (before and after connecting) to the <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org> mailing list or the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc news group, and someone should point you in the right direction.

A: As the FreeBSD kernel boots, it will probe for the serial ports in your system for which the kernel was configured. You can either watch your system closely for the messages it prints or run the command

    % dmesg | grep sio

after your system's up and running.

Here's some example output from the above command:

    sio0 at 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 on isa
    sio0: type 16550A
    sio1 at 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa
    sio1: type 16550A

This shows two serial ports. The first is on irq 4, is using port address 0x3f8, and has a 16550A-type UART chip. The second uses the same kind of chip but is on irq 3 and is at port address 0x2f8. Internal modem cards are treated just like serial ports---except that they always have a modem ``attached'' to the port.

The GENERIC kernel includes support for two serial ports using the same irq and port address settings in the above example. If these settings aren't right for your system, or if you've added modem cards or have more serial ports than your kernel is configured for, just reconfigure your kernel. See section about building a kernel for more details.

A: Refer to the answer to the previous question.

A: Don't worry, they have been merged with the ttydX devices. You'll have to change any old configuration files you have, though.

A: The third serial port, sio2 (known as COM3 in DOS), is on /dev/cuaa2 for dial-out devices, and on /dev/ttyd2 for dial-in devices. What's the difference between these two classes of devices?

You use ttydX for dial-ins. When opening /dev/ttydX in blocking mode, a process will wait for the corresponding cuaaX device to become inactive, and then wait for the carrier detect line to go active. When you open the cuaaX device, it makes sure the serial port isn't already in use by the ttydX device. If the port's available, it ``steals'' it from the ttydX device. Also, the cuaXX device doesn't care about carrier detect. With this scheme and an auto-answer modem, you can have remote users log in and you can still dialout with the same modem and the system will take care of all the conflicts.

A: Again, the section on kernel configuration provides information about configuring your kernel. For a multiport serial card, place an sio line for each serial port on the card in the kernel configuration file. But place the irq and vector specifiers on only one of the entries. All of the ports on the card should share one irq. For consistency, use the last serial port to specify the irq. Also, specify the COM_MULTIPORT option.

The following example is for an AST 4-port serial card on irq 7:

    options "COM_MULTIPORT"
    device sio4 at isa? port 0x2a0 tty flags 0x781
    device sio5 at isa? port 0x2a8 tty flags 0x781
    device sio6 at isa? port 0x2b0 tty flags 0x781
    device sio7 at isa? port 0x2b8 tty flags 0x781 irq 7 vector siointr

The flags indicate that the master port has minor number 7 (0x700), diagnostics enabled during probe (0x080), and all the ports share an irq (0x001).

A: Not yet. You'll have to use a different irq for each card.

A: The ttydX (or cuaaX) device is the regular device you'll want to open for your applications. When a process opens the device, it'll have a default set of terminal I/O settings. You can see these settings with the command

    # stty -a -f /dev/ttyd1

When you change the settings to this device, the settings are in effect until the device is closed. When it's reopened, it goes back to the default set. To make changes to the default set, you can open and adjust the settings of the ``initial state'' device. For example, to turn on CLOCAL mode, 8 bits, and XON/XOFF flow control by default for ttyd5, do:

    # stty -f /dev/ttyid5 clocal cs8 ixon ixoff

A good place to do this is in /etc/rc.serial. Now, an application will have these settings by default when it opens ttyd5. It can still change these settings to its liking, though.

You can also prevent certain settings from being changed by an application by making adjustments to the ``lock state'' device. For example, to lock the speed of ttyd5 to 57600 bps, do

    # stty -f /dev/ttyld5 57600

Now, an application that opens ttyd5 and tries to change the speed of the port will be stuck with 57600 bps.

Naturally, you should make the initial state and lock state devices writable only by root. The MAKEDEV script does NOT do this when it creates the device entries.

A: So you want to become an Internet service provider, eh? First, you'll need one or more modems that can auto-answer. Your modem will need to assert carrier-detect when it detects a carrier and not assert it all the time. It will need to hang up the phone and reset itself when the data terminal ready (DTR) line goes from on to off. It should probably use RTS/CTS flow control or no local flow control at all. Finally, it must use a constant speed between the computer and itself, but (to be nice to your callers) it should negotiate a speed between itself and the remote modem.

For many Hayes command-set--compatible modems, this command will make these settings and store them in nonvolatile memory:

    AT &C1 &D3 &K3 &Q6 S0=1 &W

See the section on sending AT commands below for information on how to make these settings without resorting to an MS-DOS terminal program.

Next, make an entry in /etc/ttys for the modem. This file lists all the ports on which the operating system will await logins. Add a line that looks something like this:

    ttyd1 "/usr/libexec/getty std.57600" dialup on insecure

This line indicates that the second serial port (/dev/ttyd1) has a modem connected running at 57600 bps and no parity (std.57600, which comes from the file /etc/gettytab). The terminal type for this port is dialup. The port is on and is insecure---meaning root logins on the port aren't allowed. For dialin ports like this one, use the ttydX entry.

It's common practice to use dialup as the terminal type. Many users set up in their .profile or .login files a prompt for the actual terminal type if the starting type is dialup. The example shows the port as insecure. To become root on this port, you have to login as a regular user, then su to become root. If you use secure then root can login in directly.

After making modifications to /etc/ttys, you need to send a hangup or HUP signal to the init process:

    # kill -HUP 1

This forces the init process to reread /etc/ttys. The init process will then start getty processes on all on ports. You can find out if logins are available for your port by typing

    % ps -ax | grep '[t]tyd1'

You should see something like:

    747 ??  I      0:00.04 /usr/libexec/getty std.57600 ttyd1

A: If you're using another computer as a terminal into your FreeBSD system, get a null modem cable to go between the two serial ports. If you're using an actual terminal, see its accompanying instructions.

Then, modify /etc/ttys, like above. For example, if you're hooking up a WYSE-50 terminal to the fifth serial port, use an entry like this:

    ttyd4 "/usr/libexec/getty std.38400" wyse50 on secure

This example shows that the port on /dev/ttyd4 has a wyse50 terminal connected at 38400 bps with no parity (std.38400 from /etc/gettytab) and root logins are allowed (secure).

A: On your system, the programs tip and cu are probably executable only by uucp and group dialer. You can use the group dialer to control who has access to your modem or remote systems. Just add yourself to group dialer.

Alternatively, you can let everyone on your system run tip and cu by typing:

    # chmod 4511 /usr/bin/cu
    # chmod 4511 /usr/bin/tip

A: Actually, the man page for tip is out of date. There is a generic Hayes dialer already built in. Just use at=hayes in your /etc/remote file.

The Hayes driver isn't smart enough to recognize some of the advanced features of newer modems---messages like BUSY, NO DIALTONE, or CONNECT 115200 will just confuse it. You should turn those messages off when you use tip (using ATX0&W).

Also, the dial timeout for tip is 60 seconds. Your modem should use something less, or else tip will think there's a communication problem. Try ATS7=45&W.

Actually, as shipped tip doesn't yet support it fully. The solution is to edit the file tipconf.h in the directory /usr/src/usr.bin/tip/tip. Obviously you need the source distribution to do this.

Edit the line #define HAYES 0 to #define HAYES 1. Then make and make install. Everything works nicely after that.

A: Make what's called a ``direct'' entry in your /etc/remote file. For example, if your modem's hooked up to the first serial port, /dev/cuaa0, then put in the following line:

    cuaa0:dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#19200:pa=none

Use the highest bps rate your modem supports in the br capability. Then, type tip cuaa0 and you'll be connected to your modem.

If there is no /dev/cuaa0 on your system, do this:

    # cd /dev
    # sh MAKEDEV cuaa0

Or use cu as root with the following command:

    # cu -lline -sspeed

with line being the serial port (e.g. /dev/cuaa0) and speed being the speed (e.g.57600). When you are done entering the AT commands hit ~. to exit.

A: The <@> sign in the phone number capability tells tip to look in /etc/phones for a phone number. But the <@> sign is also a special character in capability files like /etc/remote. Escape it with a backslash:

    pn=\@

A: Put what's called a ``generic'' entry in your /etc/remote file. For example:

    tip115200|Dial any phone number at 115200 bps:\
        :dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#115200:at=hayes:pa=none:du:
    tip57600|Dial any phone number at 57600 bps:\
        :dv=/dev/cuaa0:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du:

Then you can do something like tip -115200 5551234. If you prefer cu over tip, use a generic cu entry:

    cu115200|Use cu to dial any number at 115200bps:\
            :dv=/dev/cuaa1:br#57600:at=hayes:pa=none:du:

and type cu 5551234 -s 115200.

A: Put in an entry for tip1200 or cu1200, but go ahead and use whatever bps rate is appropriate with the br capability. tip thinks a good default is 1200 bps which is why it looks for a tip1200 entry. You don't have to use 1200 bps, though.

A: Rather than waiting until you're connected and typing CONNECT host each time, use tip's cm capability. For example, these entries in /etc/remote:

    pain|pain.deep13.com|Forrester's machine:\
        :cm=CONNECT pain\n:tc=deep13:
    muffin|muffin.deep13.com|Frank's machine:\
        :cm=CONNECT muffin\n:tc=deep13:
    deep13:Gizmonics Institute terminal server:\
        :dv=/dev/cua02:br#38400:at=hayes:du:pa=none:pn=5551234:

will let you type tip pain or tip muffin to connect to the hosts pain or muffin; and tip deep13 to get to the terminal server.

A: This is often a problem where a university has several modem lines and several thousand students trying to use them...

Make an entry for your university in /etc/remote and use <\@> for the pn capability:

    big-university:\
        :pn=\@:tc=dialout
    dialout:\
        :dv=/dev/cuaa3:br#9600:at=courier:du:pa=none:

Then, list the phone numbers for the university in /etc/phones:

    big-university 5551111
    big-university 5551112
    big-university 5551113
    big-university 5551114

tip will try each one in the listed order, then give up. If you want to keep retrying, run tip in a while loop.

A: CTRL+P is the default ``force'' character, used to tell tip that the next character is literal data. You can set the force character to any other character with the ~s escape, which means ``set a variable''.

Type ~sforce=single-char followed by a newline. single-char is any single character. If you leave out single-char, then the force character is the nul character, which you can get by typing CTRL+2 or CTRL+SPACE. A pretty good value for single-char is SHIFT+CTRL+6, which I've seen only used on some terminal servers.

You can have the force character be whatever you want by specifying the following in your $HOME/.tiprc file:

    force=single-char

A: You must've pressed CTRL+A, tip ``raise character'', specially designed for people with broken caps-lock keys. Use ~s as above and set the variable ``raisechar'' to something reasonable. In fact, you can set it to the same as the force character, if you never expect to use either of these features.

Here's a sample .tiprc file perfect for Emacs users who need to type CTRL+2 and CTRL+A a lot:

    force=^^
    raisechar=^^

The ^^ is SHIFT+CTRL+6.

A: If you're talking to another UNIX system, you can send and receive files with ~p (put) and ~t (take). These commands run cat and echo on the remote system to accept and send files. The syntax is:

    ~p <local-file> [<remote-file>]
    ~t <remote-file> [<local-file>]

There's no error checking, so you probably should use another protocol, like zmodem.

A: First, install one of the zmodem programs from the ports collection (such as one of the two from the comms category, lrzsz and rzsz).

To receive files, start the sending program on the remote end. Then, press enter and type ~C rz (or ~C lrz if you installed lrzsz) to begin receiving them locally.

To send files, start the receiving program on the remote end. Then, press enter and type ~C sz files (or ~C lsz files) to send them to the remote system.

A: Motherboards and cards with Acer UARTs do not probe properly under the FreeBSD sio probe. Obtain a patch from www.lemis.com to fix your problem.

A: FreeBSD only appears to use more swap than Linux. In actual fact, it does not. The main difference between FreeBSD and Linux in this regard is that FreeBSD will proactively move entirely idle, unused pages of main memory into swap in order to make more main memory available for active use. Linux tends to only move pages to swap as a last resort. The perceived heavier use of swap is balanced by the more efficient use of main memory.

Note that while FreeBSD is proactive in this regard, it does not arbitrarily decide to swap pages when the system is truely idle. Thus you will not find your system all paged out when you get up in the morning after leaving it idle overnight.

A: The simple answer is that free memory is wasted memory. Any memory that your programs don't actively allocate is used within the FreeBSD kernel as disk cache. The values shown by top(1) labelled as Inact, Cache, and Buf are all cached data at different aging levels. This cached data means the system does not have to access a slow disk again for data it has accessed recently, thus increasing overall performance. In general, a low value shown for Free memory in top(1) is good, provided it is not very low.

A: To understand why FreeBSD uses the ELF format, you must first know a little about the 3 currently ``dominant'' executable formats for UNIX:

• a.out

  The oldest and ``classic'' unix object format. It uses a short and compact header with a magic number at the beginning that's often used to characterize the format (see a.out(5) for more details). It contains three loaded segments: .text, .data, and .bss plus a symbol table and a string table.

• COFF

  The SVR3 object format. The header now comprises a section table, so you can have more than just .text, .data, and .bss sections.

• ELF

  The successor to COFF, featuring Multiple sections and 32-bit or 64-bit possible values. One major drawback: ELF was also designed with the assumption that there would be only one ABI per system architecture. That assumption is actually quite incorrect, and not even in the commercial SYSV world (which has at least three ABIs: SVR4, Solaris, SCO) does it hold true.

  FreeBSD tries to work around this problem somewhat by providing a utility for branding a known ELF executable with information about the ABI it's compliant with. See the man page for brandelf for more information.

FreeBSD comes from the ``classic'' camp and has traditionally used the a.out format, a technology tried and proven through many generations of BSD releases. Though it has also been possible for some time to build and run native ELF binaries (and kernels) on a FreeBSD system, FreeBSD initially resisted the ``push'' to switch to ELF as the default format. Why? Well, when the Linux camp made their painful transition to ELF, it was not so much to flee the a.out executable format as it was their inflexible jump-table based shared library mechanism, which made the construction of shared libraries very difficult for vendors and developers alike. Since the ELF tools available offered a solution to the shared library problem and were generally seen as ``the way forward'' anyway, the migration cost was accepted as necessary and the transition made.

In FreeBSD's case, our shared library mechanism is based more closely on Sun's SunOS-style shared library mechanism and, as such, is very easy to use. However, starting with 3.0, FreeBSD officially supports ELF binaries as the default format. Even though the a.out executable format has served us well, the GNU people, who author the compiler tools we use, have dropped support for the a.out format. This has forced us to maintain a divergent version of the compler and linker, and has kept us from reaping the benefits of the latest GNU development efforts. Also the demands of ISO-C++, notably contstructors and destructors, has also led to native ELF support in future FreeBSD releases.

A: Back in the dim, dark past, there was simple hardware. This simple hardware supported a simple, small system. a.out was completely adequate for the job of representing binaries on this simple system (a PDP-11). As people ported unix from this simple system, they retained the a.out format because it was sufficient for the early ports of unix to architectures like the Motorola 68k, VAXen, etc.

Then some bright hardware engineer decided that if he could force software to do some sleazy tricks, then he'd be able to shave a few gates off the design and allow his CPU core to run faster. While it was made to work with this new kind of hardware (known these days as RISC), a.out was ill-suited for this hardware, so many formats were developed to get to a better performance from this hardware than the limited, simple a.out format could offer. Things like COFF, ECOFF, and a few obscure others were invented and their limitations explored before things seemed to settle on ELF.

In addition, program sizes were getting huge and disks (and physical memory) were still relatively small so the concept of a shared library was born. The VM system also became more sophisticated. While each one of these advancements was done using the a.out format, its usefulness was stretched more and more with each new feature. In addition, people wanted to dynamically load things at run time, or to junk parts of their program after the init code had run to save in core memory and/or swap space. Languages became more sophistocated and people wanted code called before main automatically. Lots of hacks were done to the a.out format to allow all of these things to happen, and they basically worked for a time. In time, a.out wasn't up to handling all these problems without an ever increasing overhead in code and complexity. While ELF solved many of these problems, it would be painful to switch from the system that basically worked. So ELF had to wait until it was more painful to remain with a.out than it was to migrate to ELF.

However, as time passed, the build tools that FreeBSD derived their build tools from (the assembler and loader especially) evolved in two parallel trees. The FreeBSD tree added shared libraries and fixed some bugs. The GNU folks that originally write these programs rewrote them and added simpler support for building cross compilers, plugging in different formats at will, etc. Since many people wanted to build cross compilers targeting FreeBSD, they were out of luck since the older sources that FreeBSD had for as and ld weren't up to the task. The new gnu tools chain (binutils) does support cross compiling, ELF, shared libraries, C++ extnensions, etc. In addition, many vendors are releasing ELF binaries, and it is a good thing for FreeBSD to run them. And if it is running ELF binaries, why bother having a.out any more? It is a tired old horse that has proven useful for a long time, but it is time to turn him out to pasture for his long, faithful years of service.

ELF is more expressive than a.out and will allow more extensibility in the base system. The ELF tools are better maintained, and offer cross compilation support, which is important to many people. ELF may be a little slower than a.out, but trying to measure it can be difficult. There are also numerous details that are different between the two in how they map pages, handle init code, etc. None of these are very important, but they are differences. In time support for a.out will be moved out of the GENERIC kernel, and eventually removed from the kernel once the need to run legacy a.out programs is past.

A: Symlinks do not have permissions, and by default, chmod(1) will not follow symlinks to change the permissions on the target file. So if you have a file, foo, and a symlink to that file, bar, then this command will always succeed.

    % chmod g-w bar

However, the permissions on foo will not have changed.

You have to use either -H or -L together with the -R option to make this work. See the chmod and symlink man pages for more info.