freebsd-tips revision 78512
1This fortune brought to you by: 2$FreeBSD: head/games/fortune/datfiles/freebsd-tips 78512 2001-06-20 20:14:36Z mph $ 3% 4Having trouble using FTP through a firewall? Try setting the environment 5variable FTP_PASSIVE_MODE to yes, and see ftp(1) for more details. 6% 7By pressing "Scroll Lock" you can use the arrow keys to scroll backward 8through the console output. Press "Scroll Lock" again to turn it off. 9% 10Want colour in your directory listings? Use "ls -G". "ls -F" is also useful, 11and they can be combined as "ls -FG". 12% 13If you need to ask a question on the FreeBSD-questions mailing list then 14 15 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/\ 16 freebsd-questions/index.html 17 18contains lots of useful advice to help you get the best results. 19% 20If you'd like to keep track of applications in the FreeBSD ports tree, take a 21look at FreshPorts; 22 23 http://www.freshports.org/ 24% 25To search for files that match a particular name, use find(1); for example 26 27 find / -name "*GENERIC*" -ls 28 29will search '/', and all subdirectories, for files with 'GENERIC' in the name. 30 -- Stephen Hilton <nospam@hiltonbsd.com> 31% 32In tcsh, you can `set autolist' to have the shell automatically show 33all the possible matches when doing filename/directory expansion. 34 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 35% 36You can `set autologout = 30' to have tcsh log you off automatically 37if you leave the shell idle for more than 30 seconds. 38 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 39% 40If you `set filec' (file completion) in tcsh and write a part of the 41filename, pressing TAB will show you the available choices when there 42is more than one, or complete the filename if there's only one match. 43 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 44% 45You can press up-arrow or down-arrow to walk through a list of 46previous commands in tcsh. 47 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 48% 49You can disable tcsh's terminal beep if you `set nobeep'. 50 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 51% 52If you `set watch (0 any any)' in tcsh, you will be notified when 53someone logs in or out of your system. 54 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 55% 56Nice tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%m %# ' 57 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 58% 59Nice tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%n@%m%# ' 60 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 61% 62Nice tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%n@%m:%~%# ' 63 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 64% 65Nice tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%n@%m:%/%# ' 66 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 67% 68Nice tcsh prompt: set prompt = '[%B%m%b] %B%~%b%# ' 69% 70Simple tcsh prompt: set prompt = '%# ' 71 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 72% 73If you want df(1) and other commands to display disk sizes in 74kilobytes instead of 512-byte blocks, set BLOCKSIZE in your 75environment to 'K'. 76 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 77% 78To change an environment variable in tcsh you use: setenv NAME "value" 79where NAME is the name of the variable and "value" its new value. 80 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 81% 82To change an environment variable in /bin/sh use: 83 84 $ VARIABLE="value" 85 $ export VARIABLE 86 -- Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> 87% 88/etc/make.conf contains overrides to /etc/defaults/make.conf, which 89controls the options used to compile software on this system. 90% 91To do a fast search for a file, try 92 93 locate filename 94 95locate uses a database that is updated every saturday (assuming your computer 96is running FreeBSD at the time) to quickly find files based on name only. 97% 98In order to search for a string in some files, use 'grep' like this: 99 100 grep "string" filename1 [filename2 filename3 ...] 101 102This will print out the lines in the files that contain the string. grep can 103also do a lot more advanced searches - type 'man grep' for details. 104% 105You can use the 'fetch' command to retrieve files over ftp or http. 106 107 fetch http://www.freebsd.org/index.html 108 109will download the front page of the FreeBSD web site. 110% 111In order to make fetch (the FreeBSD downloading tool) ask for 112username/password when it encounter a password-protected web page, you can set 113the environment variable HTTP_AUTH to 'basic:*'. 114% 115You can permanently set environment variables for your shell by putting them 116in a startup file for the shell. The name of the startup file varies 117depending on the shell - csh and tcsh uses .cshrc, bash uses .bashrc, zsh uses 118.zshenv, ksh uses .kshrc, and the Bourne shell (/bin/sh) uses .profile (and 119through a little bit of trickery in .profile also .shrc) 120Other shells will often also read .profile 121% 122If you are running xterm, the default TERM variable will be 'xterm'. If you 123set this environment variable to 'xterm-color' instead, a lot of programs will 124use colors. You can do this by 125 126 TERM=xterm-color; export TERM 127 128in Bourne-derived shells, and 129 130 setenv TERM xterm-color 131 132in csh-derived shells. 133% 134If you accidently drop into /bin/sh (e.g, due to a computer failure where you 135end up in single user mode), you can make the cursor keys work by typing 136 137 set -E 138 139The E represents the initial E in Emacs (for emacs keys). 140% 141If you do not want to get beeps in X11 (X Windows), you can turn them off with 142 143 xset b off 144% 145You can look through a file in a nice text-based interface by typing 146 147 less filename 148% 149The default editor in FreeBSD is vi, which is efficient to use when you have 150learned it, but somewhat user-unfriendly. To use ee (an easier but less 151powerful editor) instead, set the environment variable EDITOR to /usr/bin/ee 152% 153If you accidently end up inside vi, you can quit it by pressing Escape, colon 154(:), q (q), bang (!) and pressing return. 155% 156You can use aliases to decrease the amount of typing you need to do to get 157commands you commonly use. Examples of fairly popular aliases include (in 158bourne shell style, as in /bin/sh, bash, ksh, and zsh): 159 160 alias lf="ls -FA" 161 alias ll="ls -lA" 162 alias su="su -m" 163 164In csh or tcsh, these would be 165 166 alias lf ls -FA 167 alias ll ls -lA 168 alias su su -m 169 170To remove an alias, you can usually use 'unalias aliasname'. To list all 171aliases, you can usually type just 'alias'. 172% 173In order to support national characters for european languages in tools like 174less without creating other nationalisation aspects, set the environment 175variable LC_ALL to 'en_US.ISO8859-1'. 176% 177You can search for documentation on a keyword by typing 178 179 apropos keyword 180% 181Man pages are divided into section depending on topic. There are 9 different 182sections numbered from 1 (General Commands) to 9 (Kernel Developer's Manual). 183You can get an introduction to each topic by typing 184 185 man <number> intro 186 187In other words, to get the intro to general commands, type 188 189 man 1 intro 190% 191FreeBSD is started up by the program 'init'. The first thing init does when 192starting multiuser mode (ie, starting the computer up for normal use) is to 193run the shell script /etc/rc. By reading /etc/rc, you can learn a lot about 194how the system is put together, which again will make you more confident about 195what happens when you do something with it. 196% 197If you want to play CDs with FreeBSD, a utility for this is already included. 198Type 'cdcontrol' then 'help' to learn more. (You may need to set the CDROM 199environment variable in order to make cdcontrol want to start.) 200% 201If you have a CD-ROM drive in your machine, you can make the CD-ROM that is 202presently inserted available by typing 'mount /cdrom' as root. The CD-ROM 203will be available under /cdrom/. Remember to do 'umount /cdrom' before 204removing the CD-ROM (it will usually not be possible to remove the CD-ROM 205without doing this.) 206 207Note: This tip may not work in all configurations. 208% 209You can install extra packages for FreeBSD by using the ports system. 210If you have installed it, you can download, compile, and install software by 211just typing 212 213 # cd /usr/ports/<category>/<portname> 214 # make install && make clean 215 216as root. The ports infrastructure will download the software, change it so 217it works on FreeBSD, compile it, install it, register the installation so it 218will be possible to automatically uninstall it, and clean out the temporary 219working space it used. You can remove an installed port you decide you do not 220want after all by typing 221 222 # cd /usr/ports/<category>/<portname> 223 # make deinstall 224 225as root. 226% 227Nice bash prompt: PS1='(\[$(tput md)\]\t <\w>\[$(tput me)\]) $(echo $?) \$ ' 228 -- Mathieu <mathieu@hal.interactionvirtuelle.com> 229% 230To see the output from when your computer started, run dmesg(8). If it has 231been replaced with other messages, look at /var/run/dmesg.boot. 232 -- Francisco Reyes <lists@natserv.com> 233% 234You can use "whereis" to locate standard binary, manual page and source 235directories for the specified programs. This can be particularly handy 236when you are trying to find where in the ports tree an application is. 237 238Try "whereis netscape" and "whereis whereis". 239 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 240% 241You can press Ctrl-D to quickly exit from a shell, or logout from a 242login shell. 243 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 244% 245You can use "pkg_info" to see a list of packages you have installed. 246 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 247% 248You can change the video mode on all consoles by adding something like 249the following to /etc/rc.conf: 250 251 allscreens="80x30" 252 253You can use "vidcontrol -i mode | grep T" for a list of supported text 254modes. 255 -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 256% 257Any user that is a member of the wheel group can use "su -" to simulate 258a root login. You can add a user to the wheel group by editing /etc/group. 259 -- -- Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr> 260% 261Over quota? "du -s * | sort -n " will give you a sorted list of your 262directory sizes. 263 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 264% 265Handy bash(1) prompt: PS1="\u@\h \w \!$ " 266 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 267% 268man -k "something" will give you a list of manpages that have "something" 269in their description. 270 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 271% 272Ever wonder what those numbers after command names were, as in cat(1)? It's 273the section of the manual the man page is in. "man man" will tell you more. 274 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 275% 276"man hier" will explain the way FreeBSD filesystems are normally laid out. 277 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 278% 279"man tuning" gives some tips how to tune performance of your FreeBSD system. 280 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 281% 282"man firewall" will give advice for building a FreeBSD firewall 283 -- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com> 284% 285You can often get answers to your questions about FreeBSD by searching in the 286FreeBSD mailing list archives at 287 288 http://www.freebsd.org/search.html 289% 290You can adjust the volume of various parts of the sound system in your 291computer by typing 'mixer <type> <volume>'. To get a list of what you can 292adjust, just type 'mixer'. 293% 294You can automatically download and install binary packages by doing 295 296 pkg_add -r <URL> 297 298where you replace <URL> with the URL to the package. This will also 299automatically install the packages the package you download is dependent on 300(ie, the packages it needs in order to work.) 301% 302You can get a good standard workstation install by using the 303instant-workstation port/package. If you have ports installed, you can 304install it by doing 305 306 # cd /usr/ports/misc/instant-workstation 307 # make install && make clean 308 309as root. This will install a collection of packages that is convenient to 310have on a workstation. 311% 312You can get a good generic server install by using the 313instant-server port/package. If you have ports installed, you can 314install it by doing 315 316 # cd /usr/ports/misc/instant-server 317 # make install && make clean 318 319as root. This will install a collection of packages that is appropriate for 320running a "generic" server. 321% 322You can make a log of you terminal session with script(1). 323% 324"man ports" gives many useful hints about installing FreeBSD ports. 325% 326ports/net/netcat port is useful not only for redirecting input/output 327to TCP or UDP connections, but also for proxying them. See inetd(8) for 328details. 329% 330If other operating systems have damaged your Master Boot Record, you can 331reinstall it either with /stand/sysinstall or with boot0cfg(8). See 332"man boot0cfg" for details. 333% 334Need to see the calendar for this month? Simply type "cal". To see the 335whole year, type "cal 2001". 336 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 337% 338Need to quickly return to your home directory? Type "cd". 339 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 340% 341To see the last time that you logged in, use lastlogin(8). 342 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 343% 344To clear the screen, use "clear". To re-display your screen buffer, press 345the scroll lock key and use your page up button. When you're finished, 346press the scroll lock key again to get your prompt back. 347 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 348% 349To save disk space in your home directory, can compress files you 350rarely use with "gzip filename". 351 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 352% 353To read a compressed file without having to first uncompress it, use 354"zcat" or "zmore" to view it. 355 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 356% 357To see how much disk space is left on your partitions, use 358 359 df -h 360 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 361% 362To see the 10 largest files on a directory or partition, use 363 364 du /partition_or_directory_name | sort -rn | head 365 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 366% 367To determine whether a file is a text file, executable, or some other type 368of file, use 369 370 file filename 371 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 372% 373Time to change your password? Type "passwd" and follow the prompts. 374 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 375% 376Want to know how many words, lines, or bytes are contained in a file? Type 377"wc filename". 378 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 379% 380Need to print a manpage? Use 381 382 man name_of_manpage | col -bx | lpr 383 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 384% 385Need to remove all those ^M characters from a DOS file? Try 386 387 col -bx < dosfile > newfile 388 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 389% 390Forget what directory you are in? Type "pwd". 391 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 392% 393If you are in the C shell and have just installed a new program, you won't 394be able to run it unless you first type "rehash". 395 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 396% 397Need to leave your terminal for a few minutes and don't want to logout? 398Use "lock -p". When you return, use your password as the key to unlock the 399terminal. 400 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 401% 402Need to find the location of a program? Use "locate program_name". 403 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 404% 405Forget how to spell a word or a variation of a word? Use 406 407 look portion_of_word_you_know 408 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 409% 410To see the last 10 lines of a long file, use "tail filename". To see the 411first 10 lines, use "head filename". 412 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 413% 414To see how long it takes a command to run, type the word "time" before the 415command name. 416 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 417% 418To quickly create an empty file, use "touch filename". 419 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 420% 421To find out the hostname associated with an IP address, use 422 423 dig -x IP_address 424 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 425% 426If you use the C shell, add the following line to the .cshrc file in your 427home directory to prevent core files from being written to disk: 428 429 limit coredumpsize 0 430 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 431% 432If you need a reminder to leave your terminal, type "leave hhmm" where 433"hhmm" represents in how many hours and minutes you need to leave. 434 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 435% 436Need to do a search in a manpage or in a file you've sent to a pager? Use 437"/search_word". To repeat the same search, type "n" for next. 438 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 439% 440Forget when Easter is? Try "ncal -e". If you need the date for Orthodox 441Easter, use "ncal -o" instead. 442 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 443% 444Need to see your routing table? Type "netstat -rn". The entry with the G 445flag is your gateway. 446 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 447% 448Need to see which daemons are listening for connection requests? Use 449"sockstat -4l" for IPv4, and "sockstat -l" for IPv4 and IPv6. 450 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 451% 452Can't remember is you've installed a certain port or not? Try "pkg_info | 453grep port_name". 454 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 455% 456Got some time to kill? Try typing "hangman". 457 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 458% 459To erase a line you've written at the command prompt, use "Ctrl u". 460 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 461% 462To repeat the last command in the C shell, type "!!". 463 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 464% 465Need to quickly empty a file? Use "echo > filename". 466 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 467% 468To see all of the directories on your FreeBSD system, type 469 470 ls -R / | more 471 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 472% 473To see the IP addresses currently set on your active interfaces, type 474"ifconfig -u". 475 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 476% 477To see the MAC addresses of the NICs on your system, type 478 479 ifconfig -a 480 -- Dru <genesis@istar.ca> 481% 482You can save your kernel startup configuration with kget(8). The 483Configuration can be edited at boot time with 'boot -c' command in loader. 484See boot(8), loader(8) for details. 485