Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 17:02:02 -0800 (PST) From: Greg Lehey <grog> To: FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: "The Complete FreeBSD", second edition: errata and addenda Message-ID: <199802070102.RAA04852@hub.freebsd.org>
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Errata and addenda for the Complete FreeBSD, second edition
Last revision: 4 February 1997
The trouble with books is that you can't update them the way you can a web page
or any other online documentation. The result is that most leading edge comput-
er books are out of date almost before they are printed. Unfortunately, ``The
Complete FreeBSD'', published by Walnut Creek, is no exception. The second edi-
tion has only just been published, but already a number of bugs and changes have
surfaced.
The following is a list of modifications which go beyond simple typos. They re-
late to the second edition, formatted on 16 December 1997. If you have this
book, please check this list. If you have the first edition of 19 July 1996,
please check ftp://ftp.lemis.com/pub/cfbsd/errata-1. This same file is also
available via the web link http://www.lemis.com/.
This list is available in four forms:
o A PostScript version, suitable for printing out, at
ftp://ftp.lemis.com/pub/cfbsd/errata-2.ps. See page 222 of the book to find
out how to print out PostScript. If at all possible, please take this docu-
ment: it's closest to the original text.
o An enhanced ASCII version at ftp://ftp.lemis.com/pub/cfbsd/errata-2.txt. When
viewed with more or less, this version will show some highlighting and under-
lining. It's not suitable for direct viewing.
o An ASCII-only version at ftp://ftp.lemis.com/pub/cfbsd/errata-2.ascii. This
version is posted every week to the FreeBSD-questions mailing list. Only take
this version if you have real problems with PostScript: I can't be sure that
the lack of different fonts won't confuse the meaning.
o A web version at http://www.lemis.com/errata-2.html
All these modifications have been applied to the ongoing source text of the
book, so if you buy a later edition, they will be in it as well. If you find a
bug or a suspected bug in the book, please contact me (grog@FreeBSD.org).
General changes
o In a number of places, I suggest the use of the following command to find pro-
cess information:
$ ps aux | grep foo
Unfortunately, ps is sensitive to the column width of the terminal emulator
upon which it is working. This command usually works fine on a relatively
wide xterm, but if you're running on an 80-column terminal, it may truncate
exactly the information you're looking for, so you end up with no output. You
can fix that with the w option:
$ ps waux | grep foo
Thanks to Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> for this information
Page 45: Preparing floppies for installation
Replace the paragraph below the list of file names (in the middle of the page)
with:
The floppy set should contain the file bin.inf and the ones whose names start
with bin. followed by two letters. These other files are all 240640 bytes long,
except for the final one which is usually shorter. Use the MS-DOS COPY program
to copy as many files as will fit onto each disk (5 or 6) until you've got all
the distributions you want packed up in this fashion. Copy each distribution
into subdirectory corresponding to the base name--for example, copy the bin dis-
tribution to the files A:\BIN\BIN.INF, A:\BIN\BIN.AA and so on.
Page 80 and 81
In a couple of examples, the FreeBSD partition is shown as type 164. It should
be 165. Thanks to an unknown contributer for this correction (sorry, I lost
your name).
Page 140
Just before the paragraph The super user add the following paragraph:
If you do manage to lose the root password, all may not be lost. You'll have to
reboot the machine to single user mode (see page 157), and enter:
# mount -u / mount root file system read/write
# password root change the password for root
Enter new password:
Enter password again:
# ^D enter ctrl-D to continue with startup
Note that you should explicitly state the name root: in single user mode, the
system doesn't have the concept of user IDs.
Page 160
Replace the text at the fourth bullet with the augmented text:
The second-level boot locates the kernel, by default the file /kernel on the
root file system, and loads it into memory. It prints the Boot: prompt at this
point so that you can influence this choice--see the man page on page 579 for
more details of what you can enter at this prompt.
Page 197, first line
The text of the first full sentence reads:
The first name, up the the symbol, is the label.
In fact, it should read:
The first name, up the the | symbol, is the label.
Page 283, ``Creating the source tree''
Add a third point to what you need to know:
3. Possibly, the date of the last update that you want to be included in the
checkout. If you specify this date, cvs ignores any more recent updates.
This option is often useful when somebody discovers a recently introduced
bug in -CURRENT: you check out the modules as they were before the bug was
introduced. You specify the date with the -D option, for example -D "10
December 1997".
Page 285, after the second example.
Add the text:
If you need to check out an older version, for example if there are problems
with the most recent version of -CURRENT, you could enter:
# cvs co -D "10 December 1997" src/sys
This command checks out the kernel sources as of 10 December 1997.
Page 466, before the ps example
Add another bullet:
o Finally, you may find it convenient to let some other system handle all your
mail delivery for you: you just send anything you can't deliver locally to
this other host, which sendmail calls a smart host. This is particularly con-
venient if you send your mail with UUCP.
To tell sendmail to use a smart host (in our case, mail.example.net), find the
following line in sendmail.cf:
# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DS
Change it to:
# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DSmail.example.net
Page 364, middle of page
Change the text from:
The names MYADDR and HISADDR are keywords which represent the addresses at each
end of the link. They must be written as shown, though they may be in lower
case.
to
The names MYADDR and HISADDR are keywords which represent the addresses at each
end of the link. They must be written as shown, though newer versions of ppp
allow you to write them in lower case.
Thanks to Mark S. Reichman <mark@fang.cs.sunyit.edu> for this correction.
Page 478, ``Running Apache''
The text describes the location of the server as /usr/local/www/server/httpd.
This appears to depend on where you get the port from. Some people report the
file being at the more likely location /usr/local/sbin/httpd (though note the
directory sbin, not bin). Check both locations if you run into trouble. Thanks
to Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> for this information.
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