Absolute BSD: The Ultimate Guide to Freebsd

This is a book for people who want to use FreeBSD as a server -- for mail, web services, DNS, etc. It's not a book for those who want to use FreeBSD as a desktop machine. FreeBSD makes a perfectly good desktop OS, but Absolute BSD includes very little information about setting up X or installing and using desktop applications. If you want to try out FreeBSD as an alternative to your Linux desktop, look elsewhere. But if you want to build a server, and learn an awful lot of incredibly useful bits about basic systems administration tasks (much of which is applicable to any other *nix system, including Linux), then I haven't found a better book for this purpose.I bought this book because I liked Lucas's more recent book, Absolute OpenBSD, so much, and he covers FreeBSD at least as well, if not better. His writing style is humorous and very readable while still conveying a lot of technical information, and you not only learn what you need to type on the command line to accomplish a particular task, but also how a SysAdmin thinks.Being more familiar with Linux, only somewhat familiar with BSD in general, I have gone from chapter to chapter and this book has guided me through installing FreeBSD both from CDs and over the network, upgrading it, and recompiling a more optimized kernel (which turns out to be a fairly painless process, if you follow the instructions in this book, for those of you who believe, as I did, that recompiling kernels is a big hassle, messing with the guts of your machine and likely to kill it if you make one stupid mistake). He explains every configuration file, how to set up (or turn off!) services, how to make your machine secure, how to make it useful, how to install and upgrade new packages, and how to provide web, mail, and DNS services, and his instructions are very clear and makes it much easier to understand WHY you need to do certain things as well as what you should do. Someone who has never performed any of these tasks before should have no trouble doing so by following the instructions in this book, and afterwards you should know enough that with a little exploration you'd be able to do the same on another OS.As the author says at the beginning, this book is actually meant to be read from start to finish, rather than being flipped through as a reference guide. What you learn in each chapter builds on the one before. Thus, this book might be somewhat less useful to experienced SysAdmins who just need to know BSD-specific information -- while the information is comprehensive enough to make it a good reference guide, there is probably a lot of extra space devoted to material that experienced SysAdmins already know. However, if you're a novice SysAdmin or just want to learn how to run your own server at home or a small one at work, I think Absolute BSD does a credible job of turning absolute novices into competent junior-level SysAdmins. So this is really a book about systems administration, not just FreeBSD, though the m

The introductions explains the scope of the book and who it is for: ***Welcome to Absolute BSD! This book is a one-stop shop for new UNIX administrators who want to build, configure and manage dedicated FreeBSD servers.*** Now, if that applies to you, then you can get no better book. If you want X11 stuff, look elsewhere. Wanna play games??? Keep looking. I have been a network admin on other platforms for years and moved to BSD. I needed to set up a few secure and reliable web/mail/dns servers. This book was the perfect book for my needs. But what truly makes the book unique and great is the author. Too many people write Unix books that talk about commands but never actually talk about getting work done with the computer. To me, most Unix writers are more interested in showing off acquired knowledge than actually relaying that knowledge in a useful way. Learning Unix from a book had always been pain until I found this book. If you will allow me an analogy... If you look up "hammer" in most Unix books they tell you the vector force required to use the hammer. They tell you exact measurements of a hammer. They tell you the molecular composition of the head of the hammer. Then they tell you to subscribe to [email protected]. Michael Lucas actually says that it is used to drive in a nail! (imagine that) No, this book does not cover every FreeBSD command and what it does. Nor was it meant to. The book is about providing solutions and not just a bunch or words. If you are a Unix rookie and want to become a decent admin fast, this is the right book. It is so easy to read, I read it for fun. (It is really funny) For you ultra newbies, learn a pinch of Unix first, not much but a pinch. FreeBSD is bar none, the most dependable server OS out there. Using it and this book is a killer combination. ==Update 2.5 years later== I still use this book every few months. Either to brush up on my knowledge or to help someone who is still learning. It got wet during Katrina but I'm still hanging on to it. It's a good reference. I still give it 5 stars.

This is the sort of book I've been waiting for, since reading Annelise Anderson's "FreeBSD" almost one year ago. Michael Lucas is well-known for his articles, and his knowledge and easy conversational style shine in "Absolute BSD." Of the four books I've read with "FreeBSD" in the title, this has been the most helpful -- but not necessarily the most comprehensive. The strength of "Absolute BSD" lies in Lucas' understanding of what matters most to system administrators. Control of services via scripts, bandwidth throttling, firewalls, networking health monitoring, SCSI, RAID, upgrades -- these are what UNIX sys admins care about. You'll learn the most if you follow along with Lucas' examples. I tweaked, tuned, and typed my way through kernel builds, mergemaster, IPFilter, jails, MRTG, and other processes and tools. Along the way I appreciated Lucas' attention to detail, like pointing out the subtleties of 'top -S', and his knowledge of obscure tools, like 'sockstat' or 'vmstat'. "Absolute BSD" does have a few flaws, and I almost gave it four stars. I was sad to see no coverage of 'portupgrade' (though Lucas wrote about it in Nov 01) or using RSA/DSA authentication with OpenSSH. While his instructions for Apache were sufficient to get a basic installation running, I didn't feel BIND was covered adequately. I would trade the talk about these applications for more FreeBSD-specific material, like the excellent and unique chapters on "Making Your System Useful" (ch 10) and "System Performance" (ch 18). Beware errors in crontab entries (pp 190-1) and probably omissions in OpenSSL (pp 313-4). Overall, the quality of the material Lucas included in his book far outweighed my concerns. If you know anything about FreeBSD, it's that the developers of the volunteer project are almost too busy to document their work. Thank goodness Lucas -- a FreeBSD committer -- took the time to share what he knows! "Absolute BSD" addresses topics not found in other FreeBSD or UNIX system administration books. It's a must-buy. If you want wider coverage, try "FreeBSD Unleashed." For integration with Windows, check out "The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide." For comparisons with other UNIX types, see "The UNIX System Administration Handbook." Beginners will still like Annelise Anderson's "FreeBSD." I can't wait to read Lucas' upcoming OpenBSD book.

This book is by far the most useful and helpful book I've read for setting up a *NIX server (and as my husband and I have set up several dozen Linux boxes, a couple of SGIs, and an HP-UX machine, believe me when I say I've read several). The author uses a light, humorous and conversational tone throughout, making the book an easy read even for newbies, but that doesn't mean it's lacking in technical information-- just reading Chapter 9 (Too Much Information About /etc) is enough to make your head spin.Mr. Lucas starts from the beginning with installing FreeBSD (a chapter that I admit I skipped at first, and I ended up reinstalling because of it), and goes all the way up through such non-trivial events as system panics and how to respond to them (unfortunately, most of the best options require some proactive configuring, so the bulk of the people who need the information will be unprepared. But that is hardly the author's fault). In between, he spends several chapters discussing how to secure your system, which is probably the single most important element to setting up any computer for any use, and also the most ignored.The book is, admittedly, a little light in X11 and other desktop-machine elements (a mere 14 pages are devoted to the entire subject), and is more suited to those wishing to set up a server. It's evident, however, that the author has had a great deal of experience with setting up FreeBSD servers for a number of uses in a number of environments, as there's enough information in the book to set up your server as: * An all-purpose Internet host * A dedicated mail host * A high performance web server * A firewall * A fileserver on a Microsoft network * A backup server * A nameserver * A network-monitoring serverWhile it's highly unlikely that you would ever want a single server to do all of the above, the information is there for you to pick and choose what you need for your particular environment. And throughout it all, Michael Lucas keeps his irreverent yet easily understood tone.

This is the best BSD book out there for newbies. The conversational style as well as the actual text formatting make this the easiest reading book on the subject. Others were WAY TOO technical for comprehension without repeated study. This one gets your feet wet in a comfortable manner, but still covers just about everything you need to know to make BSD into a secure, reliable SERVER.Be aware, no X-windows coverage here! If that's your issue, go to FreeBSD Unleashed. While I never read it, I know it covers X.