1This fortune brought to you by: 2$FreeBSD$ 3% 4Any user that is a member of the wheel group can use "su -" to simulate 5a root login. You can add a user to the wheel group by editing /etc/group. 6 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 7% 8By pressing "Scroll Lock" you can use the arrow keys to scroll backward 9through the console output. Press "Scroll Lock" again to turn it off. 10Don't have a "Scroll Lock" key? The "Pause / Break" key acts alike. 11% 12Can't remember if you've installed a certain port or not? Try "pkg info 13-x port_name". 14% 15Ever wonder what those numbers after command names were, as in cat(1)? It's 16the section of the manual the man page is in. "man man" will tell you more. 17 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 18% 19Forget how to spell a word or a variation of a word? Use 20 21 look portion_of_word_you_know 22 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 23% 24Forget what directory you are in? Type "pwd". 25 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 26% 27Forget when Easter is? Try "ncal -e". If you need the date for Orthodox 28Easter, use "ncal -o" instead. 29 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 30% 31FreeBSD is started up by the program 'init'. The first thing init does when 32starting multiuser mode (ie, starting the computer up for normal use) is to 33run the shell script /etc/rc. By reading /etc/rc and the /etc/rc.d/ scripts, 34you can learn a lot about how the system is put together, which again will 35make you more confident about what happens when you do something with it. 36% 37Handy bash(1) prompt: PS1="\u@\h \w \!$ " 38 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 39% 40Having trouble using fetch through a firewall? Try setting the environment 41variable FTP_PASSIVE_MODE to yes, and see fetch(3) for more details. 42% 43If other operating systems have damaged your Master Boot Record, you can 44reinstall it with gpart(8). See 45"man gpart" for details. 46% 47If you accidentally end up inside vi, you can quit it by pressing Escape, colon 48(:), q (q), bang (!) and pressing return. 49% 50If you are in the C shell and have just installed a new program, you won't 51be able to run it unless you first type "rehash". 52 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 53% 54If you do not want to get beeps in X11 (X Windows), you can turn them off with 55 56 xset b off 57% 58If you have a CD-ROM drive in your machine, you can make the CD-ROM that is 59presently inserted available by typing 'mount /cdrom' as root. The CD-ROM 60will be available under /cdrom/. Remember to do 'umount /cdrom' before 61removing the CD-ROM (it will usually not be possible to remove the CD-ROM 62without doing this.) 63 64Note: This tip may not work in all configurations. 65% 66If you need a reminder to leave your terminal, type "leave +hhmm" where 67"hhmm" represents in how many hours and minutes you need to leave. 68 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 69% 70If you need to ask a question on the FreeBSD-questions mailing list then 71 72 http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/\ 73 freebsd-questions/index.html 74 75contains lots of useful advice to help you get the best results. 76% 77If you write part of a filename in tcsh, 78pressing TAB will show you the available choices when there 79is more than one, or complete the filename if there's only one match. 80% 81If you `set watch = (0 any any)' in tcsh, you will be notified when 82someone logs in or out of your system. 83% 84If you use the C shell, add the following line to the .cshrc file in your 85home directory to prevent core files from being written to disk: 86 87 limit coredumpsize 0 88 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 89% 90If you want df(1) and other commands to display disk sizes in 91kilobytes instead of 512-byte blocks, set BLOCKSIZE in your 92environment to 'K'. You can also use 'M' for Megabytes or 'G' for 93Gigabytes. If you want df(1) to automatically select the best size 94then use 'df -h'. 95% 96If you want to play CDs with FreeBSD, a utility for this is already included. 97Type 'cdcontrol' then 'help' to learn more. (You may need to set the CDROM 98environment variable in order to make cdcontrol want to start.) 99% 100If you'd like to keep track of applications in the FreeBSD ports tree, take a 101look at FreshPorts; 102 103 http://www.freshports.org/ 104% 105In order to make fetch (the FreeBSD downloading tool) ask for 106username/password when it encounters a password-protected web page, you can set 107the environment variable HTTP_AUTH to 'basic:*'. 108% 109In order to search for a string in some files, use 'grep' like this: 110 111 grep "string" filename1 [filename2 filename3 ...] 112 113This will print out the lines in the files that contain the string. grep can 114also do a lot more advanced searches - type 'man grep' for details. 115% 116In order to support national characters for European languages in tools like 117less without creating other nationalisation aspects, set the environment 118variable LC_ALL to 'en_US.ISO8859-1'. 119% 120"man firewall" will give advice for building a FreeBSD firewall using ipfw(8). 121 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 122% 123"man hier" will explain the way FreeBSD filesystems are normally laid out. 124 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 125% 126Man pages are divided into section depending on topic. There are 9 different 127sections numbered from 1 (General Commands) to 9 (Kernel Developer's Manual). 128You can get an introduction to each topic by typing 129 130 man <number> intro 131 132In other words, to get the intro to general commands, type 133 134 man 1 intro 135% 136"man ports" gives many useful hints about installing FreeBSD ports. 137% 138"man security" gives very good advice on how to tune the security of your 139FreeBSD system. 140% 141"man tuning" gives some tips how to tune performance of your FreeBSD system. 142 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 143% 144Need to do a search in a manpage or in a file you've sent to a pager? Use 145"/search_word". To repeat the same search, type "n" for next or "p" for 146previous. 147 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 148% 149Need to find the location of a program? Use "locate program_name". 150 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 151% 152Need to leave your terminal for a few minutes and don't want to logout? 153Use "lock -p". When you return, use your password as the key to unlock the 154terminal. 155 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 156% 157Need to print a manpage? Use 158 159 man name_of_manpage | col -bx | lpr 160 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 161% 162Need to quickly empty a file? Use ": > filename". 163 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 164% 165Need to quickly return to your home directory? Type "cd". 166 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 167% 168Need to remove all those ^M characters from a DOS file? Try 169 170 tr -d \\r < dosfile > newfile 171 -- Originally by Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 172% 173Need to see the calendar for this month? Simply type "cal". To see the 174whole year, type "cal -y". 175 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 176% 177Need to see which daemons are listening for connection requests? Use 178"sockstat -4l" for IPv4, and "sockstat -l" for IPv4 and IPv6. 179 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 180% 181Need to see your routing table? Type "netstat -rn". The entry with the G 182flag is your gateway. 183 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 184% 185Nice bash prompt: PS1='(\[$(tput md)\]\t <\w>\[$(tput me)\]) $(echo $?) \$ ' 186 -- Mathieu <mathieu@hal.interactionvirtuelle.com> 187% 188Over quota? "du -sh * | sort -h " will give you a sorted list of your 189directory sizes. 190 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 191% 192nc(1) (or netcat) is useful not only for redirecting input/output to 193TCP or UDP connections, but also for proxying them with inetd(8). 194% 195sh (the default Bourne shell in FreeBSD) supports command-line editing. Just 196``set -o emacs'' or ``set -o vi'' to enable it. Use "<TAB>" key to complete 197paths. 198% 199Simple tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%# ' 200% 201The default editor in FreeBSD is vi, which is efficient to use when you have 202learned it, but somewhat user-unfriendly. To use ee (an easier but less 203powerful editor) instead, set the environment variable EDITOR to /usr/bin/ee 204% 205Time to change your password? Type "passwd" and follow the prompts. 206 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 207% 208To change an environment variable in /bin/sh use: 209 210 $ VARIABLE="value" 211 $ export VARIABLE 212% 213To change an environment variable in tcsh you use: setenv NAME "value" 214where NAME is the name of the variable and "value" its new value. 215% 216To clear the screen, use "clear". To re-display your screen buffer, press 217the scroll lock key and use your page up button. When you're finished, 218press the scroll lock key again to get your prompt back. 219 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 220% 221You can press Ctrl-L while in the shell to clear the screen. 222% 223To determine whether a file is a text file, executable, or some other type 224of file, use 225 226 file filename 227 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 228% 229To do a fast search for a file, try 230 231 locate filename 232 233locate uses a database that is updated every Saturday (assuming your computer 234is running FreeBSD at the time) to quickly find files based on name only. 235% 236To erase a line you've written at the command prompt, use "Ctrl-U". 237 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 238% 239To find out the hostname associated with an IP address, use 240 241 drill -x IP_address 242 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 243% 244To obtain a neat PostScript rendering of a manual page, use ``-t'' switch 245of the man(1) utility: ``man -t <topic>''. For example: 246 247 man -t grep > grep.ps # Save the PostScript version to a file 248or 249 man -t printf | lp # Send the PostScript directly to printer 250% 251To quickly create an empty file, use "touch filename". 252 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 253% 254To read a compressed file without having to first uncompress it, use 255"zcat" or "zless" to view it. There is also "bzcat", "bzless", "xzcat" 256and "xzless". 257 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 258% 259To repeat the last command in the C shell, type "!!". 260 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 261% 262To save disk space in your home directory, compress files you rarely 263use with "gzip filename". 264 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 265% 266To search for files that match a particular name, use find(1); for example 267 268 find / -name "*GENERIC*" -ls 269 270will search '/', and all subdirectories, for files with 'GENERIC' in the name. 271 -- Stephen Hilton <nospam@hiltonbsd.com> 272% 273To see all of the directories on your FreeBSD system, type 274 275 find / -type d | less 276 277All the files? 278 279 find / -type f | less 280% 281To see how long it takes a command to run, type the word "time" before the 282command name. 283 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 284% 285To see how much disk space is left on your partitions, use 286 287 df -h 288 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 289% 290To see the 10 largest files on a directory or partition, use 291 292 du -h /partition_or_directory_name | sort -rh | head 293 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 294% 295To see the IP addresses currently set on your active interfaces, type 296"ifconfig -u". 297 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 298% 299To see the last 10 lines of a long file, use "tail filename". To see the 300first 10 lines, use "head filename". To see new lines as they're appended 301to a file, use "tail -f filename". 302 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 303% 304To see the last time that you logged in, use lastlogin(8). 305 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 306% 307To see the MAC addresses of the NICs on your system, type 308 309 ifconfig -a 310 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 311% 312To see the output from when your computer started, run dmesg(8). If it has 313been replaced with other messages, look at /var/run/dmesg.boot. 314 -- Francisco Reyes <lists@natserv.com> 315% 316Want colour in your directory listings? Use "ls -G". "ls -F" is also useful, 317and they can be combined as "ls -FG". 318% 319Want to find a specific port, just type the following under /usr/ports 320or one its subdirectories: 321 322 make search name=<port-name> 323 or 324 make search key=<keyword> 325% 326Want to know how many words, lines, or bytes are contained in a file? Type 327"wc filename". 328 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 329% 330Want to see how much virtual memory you're using? Just type "swapinfo" to 331be shown information about the usage of your swap partitions. 332% 333Want to strip UTF-8 BOM(Byte Order Mark) from given files? 334 335 sed -e '1s/^\xef\xbb\xbf//' < bomfile > newfile 336% 337Want to use sed(1) to edit a file in place? Well, to replace every 'e' with 338an 'o', in a file named 'foo', you can do: 339 340 sed -i.bak s/e/o/g foo 341 342And you'll get a backup of the original in a file named 'foo.bak', but if you 343want no backup: 344 345 sed -i '' s/e/o/g foo 346% 347When you've made modifications to a file in vi(1) and then find that 348you can't write it, type ``<ESC>!rm -f %'' then ``:w!'' to force the 349write 350 351This won't work if you don't have write permissions to the directory 352and probably won't be suitable if you're editing through a symbolic link. 353 354If you have sudo(8) installed and permissions to use it, type 355``<ESC>w ! sudo tee %'' to force a write. 356% 357You can adjust the volume of various parts of the sound system in your 358computer by typing 'mixer <type> <volume>'. To get a list of what you can 359adjust, just type 'mixer'. 360% 361You can automatically download and install binary packages by doing 362 363 pkg install <package> 364 365This will also automatically install the packages that are dependencies 366for the package you install (ie, the packages it needs in order to work.) 367% 368You can change the video mode on all consoles by adding something like 369the following to /etc/rc.conf: 370 371 allscreens="80x30" 372 373You can use "vidcontrol -i mode | grep T" for a list of supported text 374modes. 375 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 376% 377You can disable tcsh's terminal beep if you `set nobeep'. 378% 379You can install extra packages for FreeBSD by using the ports system. 380If you have installed it, you can download, compile, and install software by 381just typing 382 383 # cd /usr/ports/<category>/<portname> 384 # make install && make clean 385 386as root. The ports infrastructure will download the software, change it so 387it works on FreeBSD, compile it, install it, register the installation so it 388will be possible to automatically uninstall it, and clean out the temporary 389working space it used. You can remove an installed port you decide you do not 390want after all by typing 391 392 # cd /usr/ports/<category>/<portname> 393 # make deinstall 394 395as root. 396% 397You can look through a file in a nice text-based interface by typing 398 399 less filename 400% 401You can make a log of your terminal session with script(1). 402% 403You can often get answers to your questions about FreeBSD by searching in the 404FreeBSD mailing list archives at 405 406 http://freebsd.markmail.org 407% 408You can open up a new split-screen window in (n)vi with :N or :E and then 409use ^w to switch between the two. 410% 411You can permanently set environment variables for your shell by putting them 412in a startup file for the shell. The name of the startup file varies 413depending on the shell - csh and tcsh uses .login, bash, sh, ksh and zsh use 414.profile. When using bash, sh, ksh or zsh, don't forget to export the 415variable. 416% 417You can press Ctrl-D to quickly exit from a shell, or logout from a 418login shell. 419 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 420% 421You can press up-arrow or down-arrow to walk through a list of 422previous commands in tcsh. 423% 424You can search for documentation on a keyword by typing 425 426 apropos keyword 427% 428You can `set autologout = 30' to have tcsh log you off automatically 429if you leave the shell idle for more than 30 minutes. 430% 431You can use aliases to decrease the amount of typing you need to do to get 432commands you commonly use. Examples of fairly popular aliases include (in 433Bourne shell style, as in /bin/sh, bash, ksh, and zsh): 434 435 alias lf="ls -FA" 436 alias ll="ls -lA" 437 alias su="su -m" 438 439In csh or tcsh, these would be 440 441 alias lf ls -FA 442 alias ll ls -lA 443 alias su su -m 444 445To remove an alias, you can usually use 'unalias aliasname'. To list all 446aliases, you can usually type just 'alias'. 447% 448You can use /etc/make.conf to control the options used to compile software 449on this system. Example entries are in 450/usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf and in make.conf(5). 451For options that are set for building FreeBSD's kernel and its world, see 452src.conf(5). 453% 454You can use "pkg info" to see a list of packages you have installed. 455% 456You can use the 'fetch' command to retrieve files over ftp, http or https. 457 458 fetch http://www.FreeBSD.org/index.html 459 460will download the front page of the FreeBSD web site. 461% 462You can use "whereis" to search standard binary, manual page and source 463directories for the specified programs. This can be particularly handy 464when you are trying to find where in the ports tree an application is. 465 466Try "whereis firefox" and "whereis whereis". 467 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 468% 469Want to run the same command again? 470In tcsh you can type "!!". 471% 472Want to go the directory you were just in? 473Type "cd -" 474% 475Can't delete /usr/obj? Enter "chflags -R noschg /usr/obj" to remove the 476system immutable flag for all files in /usr/obj. 477 478 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 479% 480Want to list all files of an installed package? Enter 481"pkg info -l packagename". 482 483 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 484% 485Are you looking for a package? Search for it with 486"pkg search part_of_package_name" 487 488 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 489% 490If you want to recursively copy a directory preserving file and directory 491attributes use 492"cp -a source target" 493 494 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 495% 496Do you wonder what a terminal program is doing at the moment? dd(1) does not 497show any throughput? Hit "^T" (Control + t) to send SIGINFO to the process 498and see what it is doing. 499 500 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 501% 502Do you want to know which version of FreeBSD you are running? Enter 503"freebsd-version -ku" to display kernel and userland version. 504 505 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 506% 507If you want to end one or more processes at a time using a regular expression 508enter "pkill regex". 509 510 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 511% 512Do you want to run a program directly after some other process has ended? Use 513"pwait pid && new_program" 514 515 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 516% 517When you want your users to be able to reboot or shutdown FreeBSD, add them 518to the group "operator" and they are allowed to use shutdown(8) and poweroff(8). 519 520 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 521% 522If you need to create a FAT32 formatted USB thumb drive, find out its devicename 523running dmesg(8) after inserting it. Then create an MBR schema, a single slice and 524format it: 525 526# gpart create -s MBR ${devicename} 527# gpart add -t fat32 ${devicename} 528# newfs_msdos -F 32 -L thumbdrive ${devicename}s1 529 530 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 531% 532If you want to get a sorted list of all services that are started when FreeBSD boots, 533enter "service -e". 534 535 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 536% 537To easily configure your installed FreeBSD use bsdconfig(8). 538 539 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 540% 541After you compiled and installed a new version of FreeBSD, use etcupdate(8) to merge 542configuration updates. 543Run "etcupdate extract" once when your sources match your running system, then run 544"etcupdate" after every upgrade and "etcupdate resolve" to resolve any conflicts. 545 546 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 547% 548Do you want to do a binary upgrade of your running FreeBSD installation? Use freebsd-update(8). 549 550To install updates and patches for the running branch use 551# freebsd-update fetch install 552 553To upgrade to a newer release use 554# freebsd-update upgrade -r ${name_of_release} 555 556 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 557% 558To run rc scripts in /etc/rc.d and /usr/local/etc/rc.d use service(8). 559Run "service ${name_of_rc_script} start" to start a daemon and 560"service ${name_of_rc_script} stop" to stop it. 561 562 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 563% 564If you don't want to edit /etc/rc.conf directly, use sysrc(8) to add and remove entries. 565Use "sysrc name=value" to add an entry and "sysrc -x name" to delete an entry. 566 567 -- Lars Engels <lme@FreeBSD.org> 568% 569