From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Thu Jun 25 18:51:07 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C850498D6C6 for ; Thu, 25 Jun 2015 18:51:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mail@ozzmosis.com) Received: from homiemail-a83.g.dreamhost.com (sub5.mail.dreamhost.com [208.113.200.129]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B055D2DC9 for ; Thu, 25 Jun 2015 18:51:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mail@ozzmosis.com) Received: from homiemail-a83.g.dreamhost.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by homiemail-a83.g.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A6995E06A; Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:51:01 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=ozzmosis.com; h=date:from :to:cc:subject:message-id:references:mime-version:content-type: in-reply-to; s=ozzmosis.com; bh=3fzguLKkcf0b/9YsF6XssPX2Rpo=; b= E0zHovqLsZ3kJk1Qj+aFAUOGBz93aVJFBS+n+/NezM7VVWx90PHc2ZP/fo2MqkR/ vlb2GIwffiMY1AqJ2RykAcfz+zCWMiBhcg9S+WXrYJiGPzntypXqrqzfmT5f7SVr cX/tV2My+in75JZmgB5wdktyEQxYO0Gndm4sBtSe88g= Received: from blizzard.ozzmosis.com (unknown [203.217.88.246]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: relay@ozzmosis.com) by homiemail-a83.g.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 2ABAD5E063; Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:51:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: by blizzard.ozzmosis.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 8AD465AD; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 04:50:58 +1000 (AEST) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 04:50:58 +1000 From: andrew clarke To: Quartz Cc: FreeBSD questions Subject: Re: Any utils worth installing a GUI on a server for? Message-ID: <20150625185058.GA73500@ozzmosis.com> References: <558B3F60.7060809@sneakertech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <558B3F60.7060809@sneakertech.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 18:51:07 -0000 On Wed 2015-06-24 19:38:08 UTC-0400, Quartz (quartz@sneakertech.com) wrote: > Traditionally I have always run fileservers headless, with any > administration being done through ssh. However, I'm currently working > with a system that's somewhat overpowered for its job and I'm > considering throwing a window manager on there just to have access to > more stuff. Are there any utilities out there that require or really > benefit from a window manager that are worth installing one for? The > system's main function is a sort of NAS that can have usb drives plugged > directly into it, so I'm only really interested in stuff that would > relate to that: for example disk partitioning/repair programs or fancy > shells for messing with samba/nfs/zfs, etc. You can still run GUI apps headless using SSH X11 forwarding. There's SWAT for Samba which has been around for years, but IIRC it's web based. You could connect a browser to localhost and use it that way I suppose, but it seems overkill when you can just edit smbd.conf directly though. Likewise NFS and ZFS are simple enough to use as to not need a GUI, and I honestly don't think you'd gain much from one. Replacing a ZFS drive is only about half a dozen commands, and half of those involve partitioning with gpart. GPartEd is nice but I'm not sure if it can be used in place of gpart for setting up ZFS drives. I think you still need to use gpart to install the ZFS bootcode. A GUI app for monitoring the health & usage of ZFS pools wouldn't be a bad idea but I don't know of anything. A web app would probably be better, for remote access. Overpowered servers can make good virtual machine hosts, if you feel like tinkering with other OSes on top of VirtualBox or QEMU etc. Those can be remote controlled too, though... > (Also: forgive me in advance if this is a stupid question. I'm not > familiar with using freebsd in anything resembling a workstation role, > so I'm not sure to what extent the GUI software selection differs from > linux). I think it's a good question!