FreeBSD System Setup

Introduction

This page explains how to setup a FreeBSD system capable of acting as a DrawMGT server. FreeBSD differers from Linux systems in that the basic installation includes very few users tools or applications by default. This means that you need to install all application support tools that DrawMGT requires, like Apache, MySQL and PHP.

FreeBSD is well documented. See the FreeBSD Handbook

Installing FreeBSD applications, called ports is simple and is explained here.

The basic steps to prepare a FreeBSD server are:

  1. Install the base operating system
  2. Setup disk mirroring
  3. Install support software
  4. Install other support tools
  5. Install and test DrawMGT

These steps are described below.

Base Operating System Installation

  1. Donwload an ISO image of the latest production production release:

    • http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

    • Typically you want the ISO disk-1. E.g. for release 7.2 its:
      • 7.2-RELEASE-i386-disk1.iso
    • Alternatively download:
      • 7.2-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso.gz
    • Note that other the CDs are not required
  2. Put the CD (or DVD) in the system and boot

  3. Disk partitions - Setup the following partitions (assuming disk > 300 GB):

    • Partition

      Size

      Description/Contents

      /

      1 GB

      root partition

      swap

      2-4 GB

      swap parition

      /var

      10 GB

      MySQL DBs and logs

      /tmp

      10 GB

      Make big enough to store a DVD ISO

      /usr

      20 GB

      Applications and ports

      /e/vol001

      all remaining free space

      Web trees and backups

    • Note: Later you will make a symbolic link from /home --> /e/vol001/home

  4. Network configuration - You will ned the IP addresses of:
    • Hostname and domain for the machine
    • IP address for the machine
    • Gateway
    • Primary and secondary DNS servers

Post Installation Tasks

  1. NTP Setup 
    •     ntpdate -u ntp.softxs.ch
    cd /etc/rc.d
    ./ntpd restart

    vi /etc/ntp.conf
    server ntp

    vi /etc/rc.conf
    # Add:
    xntpd_enable="YES"
    :x

    /etc/rc.d/ntp start

    ntpq -p

Disk Mirroring Configuration

Software Package Management

  1. CVSUP

Encrypted Filesystem Configuration

  1. To be completed

Main Applications to Install

  1. PHP5
  2. MySQL Server/Client
  3. Apache

Apache Configuration

Basic Configuration

Virtual Host Configuration

Additional Tools Required for DrawMGT

Copyright 2008, SoftXS GmbH, Switzerland