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Absolute FreeBSD : the complete guide to FreeBSD (3rd ed.)
Lucas M., No Starch Press, San Francisco, CA, 2018. 784 pp. Type: Book (978-1-593278-92-2)
Date Reviewed: Mar 15 2019

There are more than 700 pages in this book, and the author suggests that it should be read in entirety, from front to back! Most readers will be happy to skip the introductory text and jump straight to chapter 2, “Before You Install,” where they can learn what sort of hardware they will need and where they can obtain the most recent (12.0) installation images.

Chapter 3 provides a walkthrough of the installation process with copious screen shots. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the author uses a GUID partition table (GPT) partitioning scheme rather than the default master boot record (MBR) scheme. Both UFS and ZFS filesystem arrangements are shown, and there is a screen shot showing how ZFS mirror and RAID devices can be created. The boot process is discussed in chapter 4. There is an intriguing highlighted paragraph near its start warning that some of the material in the chapter references material found in later chapters. So in this chapter we find startup options for things like temporary filesystems and logging daemon behavior, with forward references to chapters 11 and 21, respectively; however, there is no real necessity to mention them at this stage. Similar forward references recur throughout the book. There is a short chapter on backups using tape drives, and a brief discussion of the tar utility and compression techniques is included. I am not sure that tape drives are found in many systems now, and it may have been prudent to suggest some alternative backup procedures.

The BSD systems that I have dealt with in the past have required a kernel compile in order to realize particular size, performance, driver, or other requirements. Instructions for doing that are included in chapter 6, but the author points out that FreeBSD is now able to accommodate loadable kernel modules, so kernel compilation is no longer a frequent requirement. Chapter 7 provides an introduction to transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) network layers, addressing concepts and protocols. The subsequent chapter illustrates the use of commands for interface configuration, name service configuration and cache management, performance management, and virtual local area network (LAN) creation.

Chapter 9, “Securing Your System,” addresses user management, file permissions, and system security levels. The subsequent chapter (“Disks, Partitioning, and GEOM”) introduces the FreeBSD commands for volume management, disk labeling, and partitioning. The commands in these two chapters differ somewhat from their Linux equivalents, so it’s worth reading them carefully.

Chapter 11 details the commands and configuration options that can be used with the UFS filesystem. The concepts of soft updates and journaling are explored, and the advantages of labeling filesystems are explained. The Z filesystem is discussed in the following chapter. Readers are shown how the ifs command can be used to create and manage filesystem datasets. Did you know that FreeBSD ZFS filesystem contents are, by default, stored in compressed form? Of course there are other filesystems, and FreeBSD is able to mount common MS-DOS, Linux, and memory-backed filesystems. It is also able to mount and/or export NFS and SMB filesystems. Chapter 13 covers the commands for creating, mounting, sharing, and unmounting each of these. There are also some notes relating to removable universal serial bus (USB) and DVD media.

FreeBSD now has a wide selection of pre-built packages, so it is no longer necessary to build add-on software from source files. “Making Your System Useful,” chapter 15, illustrates how the pkg package management tool can be used to find an appropriate package and install that package and all of its dependent packages. The following chapter provides information for those who might still wish to build their add-on software from source files. Chapter 17 (“Advanced Software Management”) provides a brief overview of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and thread mechanisms before detailing the structure of startup and shutdown scripts. The commands and environment variables associated with shared libraries are then discussed, and there are a few paragraphs on how Linux packages can be executed. In the interests of security, efficiency, and capability, one should check periodically for updates to FreeBSD operating system components and packages, and then proceed with installing these when appropriate. Instructions for accomplishing these tasks are provided in chapter 18.

Chapter 20 (“Small System Services”) provides configuration guidelines for daemons and utilities, which manage time synchronization, name services, dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) operations, and printing. Task scheduling (via cron) is also covered and instructions are included for using the Dragonfly Mail Agent (DMA).

Other chapters of interest are related to TCP wrappers and packet filters, system performance monitoring and enhancement, and jails. This is a book about FreeBSD server management, so there are no chapters about desktop environments and office applications. If you are running one or more FreeBSD systems, you should acquire this book. Annotated command sequences, screen shots, and message output segments are included throughout its pages, which make it easy to understand the procedures. I found it especially useful when I built a couple of ZFS-based RAID-1 systems.

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Reviewer:  G. K. Jenkins Review #: CR146472 (1905-0154)
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