BSD Hacks

In the world of Unix operating systems, the various BSDs come with a long heritage of high-quality software and well-designed solutions, making them a favorite OS of a wide range of users. Among budget-minded users who adopted BSD early on to developers of some of today's largest Internet sites, the popularity of BSD systems continues to grow. If you use the BSD operating system, then you know that the secret of its success is not just in its price tag: practical, reliable, extraordinarily stable and flexible, BSD also offers plenty of fertile ground for creative, time-saving tweaks and tricks, and yes, even the chance to have some fun.

"Fun?" you ask. Perhaps "fun" wasn't covered in the manual that taught you to install BSD and administer it effectively. But BSD Hacks, the latest in O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, offers a unique set of practical tips, tricks, tools--and even fun--for administrators and power users of BSD systems.

BSD Hacks takes a creative approach to saving time and getting more done, with fewer resources. You'll take advantage of the tools and concepts that make the world's top Unix users more productive. Rather than spending hours with a dry technical document learning what switches go with a command, you'll learn concrete, practical uses for that command.

The book begins with hacks to customize the user environment. You'll learn how to be more productive in the command line, timesaving tips for setting user-defaults, how to automate long commands, and save long sessions for later review. Other hacks in the book are grouped in the following areas:

• Customizing the User Environment
  
• Dealing with Files and Filesystems
  
• The Boot and Login Environments
  
• Backing Up
  
• Networking Hacks
  
• Securing the System
  
• Going Beyond the Basics
  
• Keeping Up-to-Date
  
• Grokking BSD

If you want more than your average BSD user--you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on your own--BSD Hacks is a must-have. This book will turn regular users into power users and system administrators into super system administrators

Table of Contents

Credits   

Preface   

Chapter 1. Customizing the User Environment  

       1. Get the Most Out of the Default Shell   

       2. Useful tcsh Shell Configuration File Options   

       3. Create Shell Bindings   

       4. Use Terminal and X Bindings   

       5. Use the Mouse at a Terminal   

       6. Get Your Daily Dose of Trivia   

       7. Lock the Screen   

       8. Create a Trash Directory   

       9. Customize User Configurations   

       10. Maintain Your Environment on Multiple Systems   

       11. Use an Interactive Shell   

       12. Use Multiple Screens on One Terminal   

Chapter 2. Dealing with Files and Filesystems  

       13. Find Things   

       14. Get the Most Out of grep   

       15. Manipulate Files with sed   

       16. Format Text at the Command Line   

       17. Delimiter Dilemma   

       18. DOS Floppy Manipulation   

       19. Access Windows Shares Without a Server   

       20. Deal with Disk Hogs   

       21. Manage Temporary Files and Swap Space   

       22. Recreate a Directory Structure Using mtree   

       23. Ghosting Systems   

Chapter 3. The Boot and Login Environments  

       24. Customize the Default Boot Menu   

       25. Protect the Boot Process   

       26. Run a Headless System   

       27. Log a Headless Server Remotely   

       28. Remove the Terminal Login Banner   

       29. Protecting Passwords With Blowfish Hashes   

       30. Monitor Password Policy Compliance   

       31. Create an Effective, Reusable Password Policy   

       32. Automate Memorable Password Generation   

       33. Use One Time Passwords   

       34. Restrict Logins   

Chapter 4. Backing Up  

       35. Back Up FreeBSD with SMBFS   

       36. Create Portable POSIX Archives   

       37. Interactive Copy   

       38. Secure Backups Over a Network   

       39. Automate Remote Backups   

       40. Automate Data Dumps for PostgreSQL Databases   

       41. Perform Client-Server Cross-Platform Backups with Bacula   

Chapter 5. Networking Hacks  

       42. See Console Messages Over a Remote Login   

       43. Spoof a MAC Address   

       44. Use Multiple Wireless NIC Configurations   

       45. Survive Catastrophic Internet Loss   

       46. Humanize tcpdump Output   

       47. Understand DNS Records and Tools   

       48. Send and Receive Email Without a Mail Client   

       49. Why Do I Need sendmail?   

       50. Hold Email for Later Delivery   

       51. Get the Most Out of FTP   

       52. Distributed Command Execution   

       53. Interactive Remote Administration   

Chapter 6. Securing the System  

       54. Strip the Kernel   

       55. FreeBSD Access Control Lists   

       56. Protect Files with Flags   

       57. Tighten Security with Mandatory Access Control   

       58. Use mtree as a Built-in Tripwire   

       59. Intrusion Detection with Snort, ACID, MySQL, and FreeBSD   

       60. Encrypt Your Hard Disk   

       61. Sudo Gotchas   

       62. sudoscript   

       63. Restrict an SSH server   

       64. Script IP Filter Rulesets   

       65. Secure a Wireless Network Using PF   

       66. Automatically Generate Firewall Rules   

       67. Automate Security Patches   

       68. Scan a Network of Windows Computers for Viruses

Chapter 7. Going Beyond the Basics  

       69. Tune FreeBSD for Different Applications   

       70. Traffic Shaping on FreeBSD   

       71. Create an Emergency Repair Kit   

       72. Use the FreeBSD Recovery Process   

       73. Use the GNU Debugger to Analyze a Buffer Overflow

       74. Consolidate Web Server Logs   

       75. Script User Interaction   

       76. Create a Trade Show Demo   

Chapter 8. Keeping Up-to-Date  

       77. Automated Install   

       78. FreeBSD From Scratch   

       79. Safely Merge Changes to /etc   

       80. Automate Updates   

       81. Create a Package Repository   

       82. Build a Port Without the Ports Tree   

       83. Keep Ports Up-to-Date with CTM   

       84. Navigate the Ports System   

       85. Downgrade a Port   

       86. Create Your Own Startup Scripts   

       87. Automate NetBSD Package Builds   

       88. Easily Install Unix Applications on Mac OS X   

Chapter 9. Grokking BSD  

       89. How'd He Know That?   

       90. Create Your Own Manpages   

       91. Get the Most Out of Manpages   

       92. Apply, Understand, and Create Patches   

       93. Display Hardware Information   

       94. Determine Who Is on the System   

       95. Spelling Bee   

       96. Leave on Time   

       97. Run Native Java Applications   

       98. Rotate Your Signature   

       99. Useful One-Liners   

       100. Fun with X