The FreeBSD experience - part 1 Installation

It has been for years since I've done anything useful with a BSD/UNIX-like OS (NetBSD on my Amiga 3000 in the early 90's) and after using Linux for some years now I decided to jump on the FreeBSD bandwagon. Ok not completely because FreeBSD will run in a virtual machine running on my Xubuntu 11.10 desktop :-).

My intention is to create a server for Joomla websites (or Wordpress). Let's see how this will workout.

I will not go in-depth in installing VMWare-player. Just go to the VMWare website, register and download VMWare player and install it. If you like VirtualBox better no problem, there won't be that many differences.





My host
AMD II X4 cpu, 4GB mem
Xubuntu 11.10 64-bit (just switched, couldn't bear Unity, Gnome3 or KDE).
Screenshots are made with Shutter (a neat discovery while writing this blog)


Get FreeBSD
I'm using the (currently) latest -STABLE release which is verion 8.2. You can find more info on where to download it here. The bootonly.iso will do the job.

Create a virtual machine
Start VMWare Player and go to File > Create a New Virtual Machine. If you burned the ISO to a CD then use the physical drive otherwise browse for the ISO and select it. VMWare-player will automatically discover that this is a FreeBSD (64-bit in my case) installation media.

Click Next to continue.

Keep the selected settings and click Next.

 
If needed change the name of the virtual machine and/or the location where it is stored. Click Next.
 

The default settings will do. Click Next.

In the customize hardware screen you can change all sorts of VM settings. My changes : 512mb, 2 CPU (quad core host), no sound card, no floppy, bridged networking. Click Finish when ready. VMWare Player will automatically start the new virtual machine.

The OS will start with a bootmenu. Wait or select 1. The first screens will ask you to select your country and prefered keyboard layout. In the main menu of sysinstall select standard.

In FDISK choose A (= Use Entire DISK) and choose Q to continue. Select standard MBR (no multiboot necessary in a VM :-)).

The disklabel editor allows you create partitions for all of you /var /usr /etc wishes. Select A (Auto defaults) and Q to continue.

Choose minimal installation. This will be a server installation so the less software the better :-). Continue with OK. In the next screen select FTP (or FTP passive), select a site near you. When you continue you will be asked which network device will be used to donwload the software, choose em0 and continue. No IPV6 and use DHCP (we will switch to fixed IP later).

Enter the hostname and missing info (if any beside the hostname), my hostname will be beesd (Bee-S-D or beast whatever pronunciation you like). Continue with OK. Since this is a test situation (and we made sane decissions)  we're sure we want to continue. FreeBSD will, after risking you life with answering yes, start to install.

Cheers !


After the installation some questions still remain to be answered:

Network gateway : No

InetD : No

SSH Login : Yes

Anonymous FTP : No

NFS Server : No

NFS Client : No

Custom console settings : No

Timezone : Yes

Clock set to UTC : No

Choose timezone + country

PS/2, Serial of Bus mouse : No (damn bus mouse, that's old....)

Browse collection : No

Add initial user accounts : Yes

add a user, provide username, password and full name. Linux users : beware ! This user does not automatically get sysadmin rights on the machine. This user needs to be a member of the group "wheel" to be able to "su". 

Just continue, we will make this user a member of "wheel" in part 2 (still figuring out the best practices on this).

After adding the user, select (X)Exit and continue with OK. Enter you root password (like 12345 or secret ;-)). 

We've come a long way, we don't want to visit the general configuration menu so we select No. In the main menu we select [X} Exit installation and we confirm this again to get a rebooted and installed FreeBSD !.