FreeBSD gives the user an option of installing the file /usr/local/etc/screenrc with some sensible defaults along with GNU Screen, aka sysutils/screen. Among the defaults are a format string for the hardstatus line. It shows the date using yy/dd/mm notation and the time as a 12 hour clock. That may be fine in the English speaking […]

Read More → Adding 24 hour clock to FreeBSD’s hardstatus string for GNU Screen

When upgrading from one major version of FreeBSD to another, in my case from FreeBSD/amd64 stable/9 to FreeBSD/amd64 stable/10, it’s customary to upgrade the installed ports afterwards, beginning with ports-mgmt/pkg. I forcefully upgraded all installed ports using portupgrade -afpv, but the upgrade of lang/ruby21 failed miserably. I removed all traces of Ruby 2.1, i.e. ports-mgmt/portupgrade […]

Read More → Ascertaining installed ports for a specific architecture

The 20150220 entry in /usr/ports/UPDATING contains no instructions for upgrading lang/php5 to lang/php56, at least not for us compiling our own ports. I learned the hard way using portupgrade what needs to be done. I have summarised my steps into the script below. Use the script as a guide, and if you do run my […]

Read More → Upgrading lang/php5 to lang/php56

dns/bind910 gained native chroot support in r382109. Those of us who used to store the BIND files in /var/named/etc/namedb and ran BIND with /var/named as the chroot environment, must do five things: Rename the /var/named directory to something else, like /var/Named. This is to avoid upsetting make -C /usr/src delete-old and still retain the meaning […]

Read More → Running dns/bind910 within a chroot after r382109

The removal of BIND from base in stable/10 left us with the option of running BIND from ports either in a jail, or as an ordinary service. The old BIND in base was able to run in a chroot environment, isolated from the rest of the system. Some of us believe a chroot is a […]

Read More → Missing chroot for dns/bind9{9,10}?