Re: Recommended reading: FreeBSD for production server use

From: Nico Meijer (nico.meijer_at_zonnet.nl)
Date: 07/16/03

  • Next message: Freddie Cash: "Fwd: Re: Recommended reading: FreeBSD for production server use" 
    Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 23:17:15 +0200
To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org

    Hi David,

    > Try "Unix System Administration", from O'Reilly. It's a huge book but
    > it's very readable and covers FreeBSD.

    Thanks for the tip. I love huge books. It's what "vacation" is made for.

    > But it's not a "cookbook", in
    > that it won't give you recipes for success. You will need to apply the
    >
    > principles you've learned by yourself. After all, every system is
    > different.

    Indeed, but I'm sure there are documents/books on ways to keep a server
    running "current" / "stable" (I don't mean -CURRENT or -STABLE) that are
    (more) FreeBSD specific.

    Perhaps some real questions would clear things up.

    Let's say I run a production status FreeBSD 4.8 server. Do I track
    RELENG_4_8? Do I track -STABLE (RELENG_4, I believe)? (My bet is on
    RELENG_4_8)

    Let's say I use ports on that server. 'ports' has no cvs tag, as opposed
    to OpenBSD's ports system. Do I cvsup my ports tree regularly? If so, do
    I issue 'portupgrade -ar' every now and then? That, for instance, would
    upgrade my 'mod_php4' to version 4.3.3-RC1. Being "RC1", it is not
    intended for production use. OTOH, my Apache would now be a patchlevel
    5, which would seem good to me, at first glance (didn't check what the
    changes were from p4).

    [For configuring and setting up Apache, I would read Apache docs and
    books. Maintaining Apache on FreeBSD is a somewhat different ballgame.]

    Let's say I run ipfw on that server? Will 'ipfw add check-state' and
    accompanying 'ipfw add allow tcp from [whatever] to me via [interface]
    port [number] setup keep-state' rules a) work (verified, it does) b)
    hold up under heavy network load?

    These are the types of questions I would like to see answered. Be it
    electronically or on paper. Ooh! My googling (they now officialy hate it
    when you say that ;-) turned up something:
    http://www.zenspider.com/Admin/Updates.html. Some more pointers. :-)

    I hope I clarified some. I'm generally not out for a FreeBSD reference
    per se (I currently don't care for running it on my workstation), I'm
    out for "(a) FreeBSD server reference(s)".

    Thanks a bunch... Nico

    P.S. I'm not looking for the answers here (even though they'd be
    appreciated), I'm looking for ways of finding the answers.
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  • Next message: Freddie Cash: "Fwd: Re: Recommended reading: FreeBSD for production server use"

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