Topher’s Scribbles

Here’s how I recompiled the kernel. I got this from the FreeBSD Handbook, but I wanted to post for my own notes. If you want more information, please refernence the handbook at FreeBSD.org

1) Before we start, make sure that we install the all the sources. Just go to sysinstall and navigate to Configure > Distributions > src, and choose ALL.

2) The handbook says to either copy the kernel or link it from another location. I chose to link it from the /root directory. Let’s just call the kernel MYKERNEL (ya ya, just like the handbook).

# cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
# mkdir /root/kernels
# cp GENERIC /root/kernels/MYKERNEL
# ln -s /root/kernels/MYKERNEL

3) Now we can edit either the kernel or edit any driver source code or modules, like the Areca drivers.

The next step is to compile and install the new kernel, but I wanted to mention this: If all you did was edit a driver, like in my future post, (insert link), and you don’t want to recompile all the modules, then open up /etc/make.conf (or create one) and use MODULES_OVERRIDE. This will only compile the modules or drivers you tell it to. It will definitely make the compile go much faster.

Here’s an example: Say you edited the Areca Driver, and acpi. Your MODULES_OVERRIDE line would look like this:

MODULES_OVERRIDE = acpi arcmsr

One thing to note is that this is all relative to the /usr/src/sys/dev/ directory. So if you wanted to recompile a sound driver and the modules I mentioned above, you would use this:

MODULES_OVERRIDE = acpi arcmsr sound/sound sound/driver/ds1

4) Now we can compile the kernel…

# cd /usr/src
# make buildkernel KERNCONF=MYKERNEL

5) and install it.

# make installkernel KERNCONF=MYKERNEL

And that’s it. Again, please reference the handbook at FreeBSD information.

Done!!

This is kinda old news and pretty much intuitive, but if you have an old FreeBSD system and update your ports, you may receive this error message when you try to install a package:

Easy fix..just add X11BASE=${LOCALBASE} to the /etc/make.conf file like this…

Done!!!

I normally don’t do this for my own personal account, but sometimes you need to use SSH in your scripts. Anyways, here we go:

I will refer to the server that you will access from as ‘Server_Alpha’, this is where the scripts would reside. The server that will be accessed, will be referred to as ‘Server_Beta’. The user wil be named, uhh, ‘User’.
First of all, make sure the user is in both machines. Once that is done, create a folder in your home directory with:

$ mkdir -p /usr/home/User/.ssh

Now to create the key:

You will get a prompt and the output so far should be something like:

Hit Enter, and it will then prompt for a passphrase. Do not use a passphrase. Just hit the enter button twice.

If successful, you will see something like this:

OK, we are done with Server_Alpha. Let’s move on to Server_Beta.

Make sure that a .ssh directory exists in the home directory and copy id_rsa.pub from Server_Alpha to A file named authorized_keys in the .ssh folder.

You can copy and paste, or use ssh. Just make sure that it is only one line!!

Done!!

This is more a rant than anything to do with what I normally post, but I just had to post this!!

In case you don’t know, I am a System Administrator for a web design company and I used to work in Tech Support for a hosting company. Since the beginning, I used dnsstuff.com for all my DNS, domain name, email tests. That site was great up until they require you to register. I was so upset that I purchased my own domain name, dnsyard.com, and started to work on my own “dnsstuff”.

Anyway, I periodically check my google ranking (OK, you got me, more like everyhour!!) and I noticed that I am on page 4 for the keyphrase, “free dns tools” (WOO HOO!!). Of course, dnsstuff ranks number one, but I noticed that the number 2 spot has changed. Well it happened to be freednstools.com. I never noticed them, and I’m sure I would have a while ago, but I decided to check them out.

So I did some snooping around. I checked their source code and first of all, noticed that they weren’t using any Keyword Meta Tags, and they rank 2nd, which doesn’t really bother me because the domain name is pretty much the keyphrase (noticed I didn’t link to them at all in this post? haha). Also, their homepage is exactly how dnsstuff used to be, and it included the same exact tools too. So I did a whois for their domain name on their site. And what do you know… The page returned an error.

WOW!! I guess that’s one way to compete with dnsstuff.com. What more can I say??

BTW, check out my site,  http://dnsyard.com/ (in case you forgot it). I only have a few tools, but I will continue to add to it. Hope you enjoy it.

Done!!

So I wasted about an hour of my life trying to figure out how to remove a filename that begins with a dash, like “-filename”. I tried quotes, backslashes, renaming the file, etc., and I still get the error:

How did I figure this out?? Uhh read the manpage…haha

It looks like there are a few ways to do it. Let’s try to delete -filename

Done!!

I’ve run into another problem installing Apache-PHP-MySQL FreeBSD server. While installing php5-extensions, I received an error when it tried to install GD. Here’s the error:

To fix, all I did was add WITHOUT_X11=yes to my make install line. You can also do a XORG_UPGRADE=yes. Either way works, but the latter will install some x11 items.

Done!!

Want to make http://domain.com/awesomepage.php?page=4&user_id=badass&action=go look like http://domain.com/awesome/page/4/user/baddass/go ?? To do this, you will need to use mod_rewrite in .htaccess or edit your Virtual Host in httpd.conf.

Here is the code:

Yes, you will need to create more than one entry per page, but if you plan it out correctly, you will need just one.
That’s all there is to it.

Done!!

Since I have a dynamic IP address at home, I always have to look it up whenever I access anything that is IP restricted at work.

All I do is run a simple code: