This is an archive of past FreeBSD releases; it's part of the FreeBSD Documentation Archive.

FreeBSD Handbook

FreeBSD Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

            doc@FreeBSD.org
          

Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by The FreeBSD Documentation Project

Welcome to FreeBSD! This handbook covers the installation and day to day use of FreeBSD Release 3.4. This manual is a work in progress and is the work of many individuals. Many sections do not yet exist and some of those that do exist need to be updated. If you are interested in helping with this project, send email to the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list . The latest version of this document is always available from the FreeBSD World Wide Web server. It may also be downloaded in a variety of formats and compression options from the FreeBSD FTP server or one of the numerous mirror sites. You may also want to Search the Handbook.

Redistribution and use in source (SGML DocBook) and 'compiled' forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code (SGML DocBook) must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified.

  2. Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Important: THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY THE FREEBSD DOCUMENTATION PROJECT "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FREEBSD DOCUMENTATION PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Table of Contents
I. Getting Started
1. Introduction
1.1. Synopsis
1.2. Welcome to FreeBSD!
1.3. About the FreeBSD Project
2. Installing FreeBSD
2.1. Synopsis
2.2. Installation Guide
2.3. Supported Hardware
2.4. Troubleshooting
3. Unix Basics
3.1. Synopsis
3.2. Permissions
3.3. Directory Structures
3.4. Shells
3.5. Text Editors
3.6. For more information...
4. Installing Applications: The Ports collection
4.1. Synopsis
4.2. Using the Ports Collection
4.3. Troubleshooting
4.4. Advanced Topics
II. System Administration
5. The FreeBSD Booting Process
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Overview of the boot process
5.3. The boot blocks: Bootstrap stages 1 and 2
5.4. loader: Bootstrap stage three
5.5. Kernel interaction during boot
5.6. Init: Process control initialization
5.7. Shutdown sequence
6. Users and basic account management
6.1. Synopsis
6.2. The superuser account
6.3. System accounts
6.4. User accounts
6.5. Modifying accounts
6.6. Limiting and personalizing users
7. Configuring the FreeBSD Kernel
7.1. Why Build a Custom Kernel?
7.2. Building and Installing a Custom Kernel
7.3. The Configuration File
7.4. Making Device Nodes
7.5. If Something Goes Wrong
8. Security
8.1. DES, MD5, and Crypt
8.2. S/Key
8.3. Kerberos
8.4. Firewalls
8.5. OpenSSL
8.6. IPsec
9. Printing
9.1. What the Spooler Does
9.2. Why You Should Use the Spooler
9.3. Setting Up the Spooling System
9.4. Simple Printer Setup
9.5. Using Printers
9.6. Advanced Printer Setup
9.7. Alternatives to the Standard Spooler
9.8. Acknowledgments
10. Disks
10.1. Synopsis
10.2. Disk naming
10.3. Adding disks
11. Backups
11.1. Tape Media
11.2. Backup Programs
11.3. What about backups to floppies?
12. Disk Quotas
12.1. Configuring Your System to Enable Disk Quotas
12.2. Setting Quota Limits
12.3. Checking Quota Limits and Disk Usage
12.4. Quotas over NFS
13. The X Window System
14. Localization - I18N/L10N Usage and Setup
14.1. Synopsis
14.2. The Basics
14.3. Using Localization
14.4. Advanced Topics
14.5. Localizing FreeBSD to Specific Languages
III. Network Communications
15. Serial Communications
15.1. Serial Basics
15.2. Terminals
15.3. Dialin Service
15.4. Dialout Service
15.5. Setting Up the Serial Console
16. PPP and SLIP
16.1. Synopsis
16.2. Using User PPP
16.3. Using Kernel PPP
16.4. Using PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE)
16.5. Using SLIP
17. Advanced Networking
17.1. Gateways and Routes
17.2. NFS
17.3. Diskless Operation
17.4. ISDN
17.5. NIS/YP
18. Electronic Mail
18.1. Synopsis
18.2. Using Electronic Mail
18.3. Troubleshooting
18.4. Advanced Topics
IV. Advanced topics
19. The Cutting Edge
19.1. Synopsis
19.2. -CURRENT v.s. -STABLE
19.3. Synchronizing Your Source
19.4. Using make world
20. Contributing to FreeBSD
20.1. What Is Needed
20.2. How to Contribute
20.3. Donors Gallery
20.4. Core Team Alumni
20.5. Derived Software Contributors
20.6. Additional FreeBSD Contributors
20.7. 386BSD Patch Kit Patch Contributors
21. Source Tree Guidelines and Policies
21.1. MAINTAINER on Makefiles
21.2. Contributed Software
21.3. Encumbered files
21.4. Shared Libraries
22. Adding New Kernel Configuration Options
22.1. What's a Kernel Option, Anyway?
22.2. Now What Do I Have to Do for it?
23. Kernel Debugging
23.1. Debugging a Kernel Crash Dump with kgdb
23.2. Debugging a crash dump with DDD
23.3. Post-mortem Analysis of a Dump
23.4. On-line Kernel Debugging Using DDB
23.5. On-line Kernel Debugging Using Remote GDB
23.6. Debugging a Console Driver
24. Linux Mode
24.1. How to Install the Linux Mode
24.2. Mathematica
24.3. How does the Linux mode work?
25. FreeBSD Internals
25.1. PC Memory Utilization
25.2. DMA: What it Is and How it Works
25.3. The FreeBSD VM System
25.4. IPv6/IPsec implementation
V. Appendices
A. Obtaining FreeBSD
A.1. CD-ROM Publishers
A.2. FTP Sites
A.3. CTM Sites
A.4. CVSup Sites
A.5. AFS Sites
B. Bibliography
B.1. Books & Magazines Specific to FreeBSD
B.2. Users' Guides
B.3. Administrators' Guides
B.4. Programmers' Guides
B.5. Operating System Internals
B.6. Security Reference
B.7. Hardware Reference
B.8. UNIX History
B.9. Magazines and Journals
C. Resources on the Internet
C.1. Mailing lists
C.2. Usenet newsgroups
C.3. World Wide Web servers
C.4. Email Addresses
C.5. Shell Accounts
D. FreeBSD Project Staff
D.1. The FreeBSD Core Team
D.2. The FreeBSD Developers
D.3. The FreeBSD Documentation Project
D.4. Who Is Responsible for What
E. PGP keys
E.1. Officers
E.2. Core Team members
E.3. Developers
F. PC Hardware compatibility
F.1. Resources on the Internet
F.2. Sample Configurations
F.3. Core/Processing
F.4. Input/Output Devices
F.5. Storage Devices
F.6. * Other
    Next
    Getting Started