VPS – meh, FreeBSD woohoo

I’m done with VPS. On some level for the reasons I noted in my other post. The price difference between a lowend dedicated server and a high end VPS account is very thin. I was pining for the days when I ran FreeBSD on production machines, so now I’m the proud renter of one athlon x2 with 2GB of ram. More importantly it’s has a shiny happy version 6.2 of FreeBSD on it.

FreeBSD has come a long way. Binary security updates (I wish I knew how to see what they were addressing though – I’m sure I just haven’t found it yet) with zero configuration, simple port updating, all the features I grew to love in the past – accf_http(9), the wonderful (for me) file layout, the memory footprint, /etc/rc.conf. I could go on and on and on. If you’re reading this you should really try FreeBSD. Here are some resources to get you started. Before any of you linux freaks start harping that “X does this too”, I use and enjoy linux in my work and at home. You can do almost anything you want these days with any major OS, much is personal taste and enjoyment.

duh, the site
The official community made manual

My pointers:
- Read /etc/defaults/rc.conf – the knobs built into this are an amazing time saver. Laziness transmuted to good system administration – example, you can setup bind in a chrooted environment out of the box. Woo!
- Read man hier(7) if you are used to linux, Solaris, etc. It’s a nice clear look at the file layout.
- Try using ports: they can save you loads of time and fix things you’re not even aware of. Most ports install additional configuration items for /etc/rc.conf – convenience!!
- When you run into something you’d want to change, but can’t find where check sysctl(8). It’s the interface to twiddle with the kernel while running.
- Ports pointer #2 – some things are better installed as a package. A prime example could be (depending on your needs of course) vim.
- If you are running apache, freeBSD supports accept filters as noted above as well as sendfile(2), depending on your needs could be quite helpful
- The official mailings lists have some really nice and helpful people