MikeL's FreeBSD howto

MikeL's FreeBSD howto - My World

I have a new system available, it's just gotten a clean install. As I do stuff, I'll try to remember to add it here, to help me do it again, knowing full well, that at some point, I'll be doing it all again...

07-Feb-2012: The system will be remotely located (co-lo'ed) and is thus considered "headless" as there's nobody there (not reliably anyways) to see the monitor.
To ensure that system messages go into a file where they can be seen from anywhere, you'll need to configure syslogd. Find the following block in /etc/syslog.conf
# uncomment this to log all writes to /dev/console to /var/log/console.log console.info /var/log/console.log On default install, the 2nd line is commented out -- remove the "#".
Now, here's the part that's easy to miss -- by default, syslogd will not create a new file -- you must either:
- give syslogd the -C command line switch which will override this behaviour and force it to create any necessary files.
- Create any files once manually (I recommend this option).
  cd /var/log touch console.log ls -l Check for permissions the same as other .log files, on mine it's 644/root/wheel.
Lastly, tell syslogd to re-read config file:
ps ax | grep syslogd kill -HUP {pid of syslogd} If you do this from the console, and get
syslogd: /var/log/console.log: No such file or directory
then you typoed the filename at the command line, or messed up the config file.
You may also see this for maillog, imapd.log, others. If so, you must recreate all of them using touch as above.

8.2-RELEASE - dedicated host provider neglected to include x-windows in install. Add X-windows:
pkg_add -r xorg
freebsd.org x windows

xterm will not run from root. Time to create own user.
Edit /etc/group, add #30 "customer"
adduser mikel
(you know the rest)

Start new ssh, login as new user
setenv DISPLAY localhost:10.0 xterm -bg black -fg white -name {whatever}&

Allow 'su' from new user:
edit /etc/group, add ,mikel to first line wheel.

My older FreeBSD installations, by default disallowed root login via ssh. Unfortunately, on this pre-installed system it is enabled. I've added "PermitRootLogin no" to ssh_conf and restarted, but no go. I've spent almost an hour websurfing for an answer and can no longer spend time on it. Maybe some day I'll figure it out.
Get a real editor on the system. I just use emacs in text mode via an existing xterm -- way faster than an explicit emacs x-windows session.
pkg_add -r emacs-nox11
rehash
so we can use it.
Install Apache:
pkg_add -r apache+mod_ssl
Add it to /etc/rc.conf: apache_enable="YES"
Start it:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache start

Check for Perl
perl -v
Should be perl v5.-something

Install php5
pkg_add -r php5
rehash
php -v
Should be php 5.-something.

Check for sendmail
ps ax | grep sendmail

pkg_add -r p5-Mail-SpamAssassin
rehash sa-update
spamassassin --lint
reality check (should say nothing).

yet to go...
.m4 file for sendmail config
add milter rules to m4 file for rbl and spamassassin
bring across other mail files, e.g. virtusertable, virt-domains
bring across users (/etc/passwd)
add /home dirs/links
bring across groups (/etc/groups)
bring across /web dir
bring across apache virt config