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aleborg

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Nov 30, 2003
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I'm planning on install FreeBSD 4.9, purchase and install DA tomorrow but I need some recommendations on what I need to install with FreeBSD and what kind of configuration I need to do. I'm new to FreeBSD (quite new to everything that don't ínclude Windows :D ), my Linux/Unix technician works on distance so I neeed to do the install on my own :( so I really need some help or a good tutorial.
For the moment we have 7 Windows servers and 1 Linux server, Windows is my area.
 
Hello,

Google would be a good choice for finding a nice tutorial to help you along. The probably the hardest part is figuring out what partition stucture you want. This can vary from person to person, depending on taste, but I'll give you a run down of where the files go, so you can pick an appropritate size/structure.

To keep things simple, you might just want to create one big partition call "/", but only do that if you have a huge hard drive that will never fill up. Creating /var and /boot is generally recommended because they need to be isolated. /var is filled with logs and email, and might fill up quickly, so keeping it isolated from the rest is a good idea. /boot holds all important kernel and boot information, so you don't want a full harddrive overfilling into that or else you might not be able to boot up your machine. Other than that, you might want to create a /home partition for all the user files. This will keep things cleaner.

Any additional comments/notes on how to setup a FreeBSD system, and things a new user might run into are welcome :)

John
 
hey aleborg!

I just did what you are planning to do over the weekend. A few issues though.

First of all make sure that the /var partition is big I'd say 2 gb. The default partition that I went with was way too small. Only 200MB :(

Httpd.conf was missing a line for squirrelmail

Imap problem in /etc/hosts
The first line for localhost was ipv6 so when you tried to use localhost it tried to use ipv6 and failed


have fun

brandt
 
I have enough with space, 2x160GB, 1 GB of DDR ram and a P4 2.66 MHz so I guess I'll put /home on one of the drives!

Any more suggestions?
 
raid?

You might think about running raid1 with those big drives. There is great documentation at www.freebsd.org and in the handbook. Mirrored drives are a must for me.

I'll let you know what other errors I find. But overall I love the system! Feel free to ask with problems. Sometimes support is hard to get a hold of.

Cheers,
brandt
 
DirectAdmin Support said:
[...] /boot holds all important kernel and boot information, so you don't want a full harddrive overfilling into that or else you might not be able to boot up your machine. [...]

John
Click to expand...
Are you sure a /boot partition is required with FreeBSD?

I got a tech tell me after trying:
"FreeBSD does not require a /boot partition. As a result, the bootloader is not loading correctly."
 
That's correct. These days FreeBSD does NOT require a /boot partition. Unless you have a compelling reason to create multiple partitions, I would keep things simple and stick everything on "/".
 
Swift-AU said:
Unless you have a compelling reason to create multiple partitions, I would keep things simple and stick everything on "/".
Click to expand...

Some compelling reasons:

1) a runaway process could fill your hard drive.

2) The /tmp partition should be nonexecutable. It should also not have quotas on.

3) /var should be on a separate partition so log files can't fill up the hard drive and crash the server.

4) It's handy to have another partition for backup purposes.

There are lots of other reasons, but I don't want to sound "religious".

Jeff
 
For a proper FBSD install at the least you would need something like:

/
/swap 2x physical ram
/var
/usr
 
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