Ansible is a very useful tool geared to system’s configuration and applications deployment. In this how to install Ansible on FreeBSD I will briefly explain what the tool is, what it does, what it does not and how to install it on FreeBSD. I will also demonstrate very basic use and on a later article I will write about software deployment and maintenance through … [Read more...]
How to mirror disks on FreeBSD’s ZFS
This article is not going to be a long, detailed, specialized how to. I just wanted to share the ease and the fantastic quality of ZFS for a dead simple need I had. A spare box with a spare disk doing nothing could be repurposed as a file share box at home. Mirroring the two disks would allow me to have a reliable file server. If one disk goes south the other one will still … [Read more...]
How to upgrade MariaDB on FreeBSD
As we all know a best practice recommendation that has been made forever, and forever many are just skipping, is running up to date software and it is one of the core fundamentals of IT. If you happen to use MariaDB on FreeBSD, the official guide on their website may not be that all helpful since most instructions are referred to GNU/Linux users. So here comes my very simple, … [Read more...]
How to improve Apache HTTP performance on FreeBSD
There are some nice articles on the internet telling you how to improve your Apache HTTP server’s performance. I did my bit on FreeBSD land. While turning on a different MPM than the prefork default one increases Apache HTTP performance by a lot, it is not the only thing one may do. For example if you are just running a single server for a small website or shop enabling the … [Read more...]
How to install Suricata on FreeBSD
Suricata is a free, open source, Intrusion Detection System software, or IDS for short. But it can also act as an Intrusion Prevention System, or IPS. It works by finding patterns using heuristics typically from network traffic. When configured to just warn about suspicious activity it is called an IDS, however when it blocks the traffic because of the pernicious activity it is … [Read more...]