Believe it or not the Bash shell does not come installed on the system. By default FreeBSD uses the sh shell (after the rewrite under the BSD license on 1989 of the original Bourne Shell found on UNIX, which had inherited the ‘sh’ name from the original’s Thomson shell), the C shell or the tcsh […]
How to install the bash shell on FreeBSD
Networking Dictionary
This is an attempt to collect all the necessary basic vocabulary to have a very basic basic understanding of networking. Because context is also needed, some concepts or historical references will be also shown. This dictionary is an informal one, for a better, accurate, more correct and in depth understanding look somewhere else, like the […]
Exploiting CVE-2019-0708 Remote Desktop Protocol on Windows
The CVE-2019-0708 is the number assigned to a very dangerous vulnerability found in the RDP protocol in Windows sytems. This is also known as the ‘Blue Keep’ vulnerability. The issue was so critical that Microsoft did even release patches to unsupported operating systems such as Windows XP or Server 2003. To this day there are […]
How to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD
I happen to self-host a few WordPress sites on FreeBSD. And as much as one can configure OP-Cache to improve PHP’s performance, object cache is a must for many WordPress sites. This how to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD will explain how to install an object cache (Redis) for WordPress (via plugin) on this […]
A brief introduction to SSL/TLS certificates
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and it an old implementation of a crytographic protocol. TLS, or Transport Layer Security, is a new one. They are both used to have privacy in the communications between different parties. They are used to secure email, web browsing, instant messaging, etc These protocols work in a complex way […]
How to install Nagios on FreeBSD
As explained in an introduction article, Nagios is a monitoring software very well established and used in production on many environments. Results are displayed in a web page so it uses a web server to publish them to the user and needs some php code to do so. It is configured through files which happen […]
How to manipulate and use USB drives in FreeBSD
If you are coming from the Windows, Mac or GNU/Linux world using USB drives on the desktop is a piece of cake. You plug it and it works. That’s it. Interoperability between the proprietary world and OSS (Open Source Software) has improved but there’s still a very palpable line. Just grab a new USB drive, […]
FreeBSD particularities
As some others unix-like operating systems FreeBSD has some particularities aside to the UNIX heritage, licensing and the like. The init system is the way a system starts up and the BSD has always been different. If you happen to be a UNIX admin I am sure you are aware of this and the folks […]
How to configure Apache HTTP with a TLS reverse proxy backend on FreeBSD
A few weeks ago I published a how to guide to configure Apache HTTP as a reverse proxy. On that ocasion I was following what the average guide on the internet does on Linux. A front end server with Apache HTTP on calls a backend server where the real site is sitting. Many backend calls […]
How to install Drupal 9 on FreeBSD 13.0
Drupal 7 is approaching its original EOL (End of Life) date (Nov. 2021) which has been extended to November 2022 due to COVID’s impact. Most companies are using Linux already and have their upgrade plans in the works or are thinking about them. This is a good time to switch platform and use Drupal 9 […]