# What are some of the things you did with FreeBSD?



## inurneck (Jan 13, 2010)

My box is up and stable I want to do something with it as I got some time on my hands and I am bored. What are some of the useful things you were able to do with FreeBSD?


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## phoenix (Jan 13, 2010)

Packet filtering + NAT firewall using IPFW, later adding traffic shaping using Dummynet.  Later adding VPN links using OpenVPN.

Web content filtering proxy/cache server using Squid and DansGuardian.

Webmail server using Postfix, Cyrus IMAP (and some with Dovecot), Cyrus SASL, Apache, and SquirrelMail.

10+ TB storage servers using ZFS and Rsync.

Home media server using ZFS, Samba, and NFS.

Desktop system using KDE 4.3.

Basically, you just need to find something you *want* to do, or learn about, and try it.  Or find something you *need* to do, and see if you can do it using FreeBSD.


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## inurneck (Jan 13, 2010)

I ran squirrelmail for my website unixhideout years ago it was nice good to hear they are still around because they deserve it. Maybe i'll run that for my self/lan just for the hell of it. I wish i had access to a static IP address, i'd  run this shit all over again. Unfortunately it's not in my budget any more.


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## Ruler2112 (Jan 13, 2010)

There are services out there that will provide (for free if I'm not mistaken) a subdomain of their network that resolves to whatever your home IP is.  There's a small piece of software that runs on your box that periodically logs into their system so that they know if your IP changes.  IIRC, there's a small amount of lag in the update process, but not bad.  This was years ago I saw this - google will probably turn up something if you're interested.

For myself, I run a mail server (with squirrelmail providing webmail) at work that also masquerades our WiFi hotspot using traffic shaping to prevent wifi users from bogging it down.  I've done more than a few custom scripts to tweak how it acts; posted a couple of them here in the 'useful scripts' thread.  At home, I just have a server with 2 RAID-1 drives for digital pictures/documents and masquerading services for my network.  I've wanted to put in a few cameras and use ZoneMinder to set up a video surveillance system (have this on slackware at work), but the machine is underpowered for that and I really just don't wanna screw with it.  My DVR runs MythTV on linux, which I believe also runs on BSD.


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## tlc337 (Jan 13, 2010)

I just use it as my home server:

Apache/MySQL/Tomcat
AFP File server (videos, music, pics, data)
SSH
OpenSSL
Collectd
APCUPSD
Playstation Media Server - I wrote the rc script for it myself 

I use selfip to use my public, dynamic IP address as a host for my public domain.  inadyn allows you to track changes and update it.  It has worked great so far.


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## jgh@ (Jan 14, 2010)

I created a custom distribution that has my own kernel in it, along with the GENERIC kernel.

I also created a freebsd-update server based on my distribution so I can distribute security, errata and operating system release upgrades.


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## Matty (Jan 14, 2010)

As NAS:
4x1TB with ZFS
AFP for OSX (works great with timemachine)
SMB for Win7/mediaplayer


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## soupbowl (Jan 14, 2010)

tlc337 said:
			
		

> AFP File server (videos, music, pics, data)



 How do you like AFP? Been really curious about it.


 I have a home server which I use to store all my files, as well as:
-ftp
-local dns
-house VoiP system

I often ssh or ftp into it from work or my phone to get media or check on it. I also leave a tight VNC server always running on it with openbox as the WM.

 I also have a desktop which i used 50% of them time on freebsd.
Just a custom tailored desktop with openbox and lots of other fun stuff.


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## Graaf_van_Vlaanderen (Jan 14, 2010)

I often use GNU Octave on FreeBSD to do some numerical computations. I always run these scripts on a server.


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## Alt (Jan 14, 2010)

inurneck said:
			
		

> My box is up and stable I want to do something with it as I got some time on my hands and I am bored. What are some of the useful things you were able to do with FreeBSD?


I have toolbox and i want to do something with it as im bored. What are some useful things you were able to do with a HAMMER ?

You can use it. You just need a target - why you need it at all.


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## tingo (Jan 14, 2010)

Ruler2112 said:
			
		

> There are services out there that will provide (for free if I'm not mistaken) a subdomain of their network that resolves to whatever your home IP is.  There's a small piece of software that runs on your box that periodically logs into their system so that they know if your IP changes.  IIRC, there's a small amount of lag in the update process, but not bad.  This was years ago I saw this - google will probably turn up something if you're interested.


Dynamic DNS services, like DynDNS. Works great for getting web servers on the net. Mail used to work great too, but today it is much more painful, as most mail servers out there check the reverse dns name (for lack of a better word), and if that doesn't match the name you mailserver says it has, they don't want to talk to it.

I addition to what is already mentioned in this thread, I run my MythTV backend server on FreeBSD.


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## DutchDaemon (Jan 14, 2010)

tingo said:
			
		

> ... most mail servers out there check the reverse dns name (for lack of a better word), and if that doesn't match the name you mailserver says it has, they don't want to talk to it....



Not entirely correct. The host/DNS name of your mailserver is not really relevant. If the connecting IP (your IP address) has a reverse DNS record of, say, 123-123-123-123.dsl-provider.com, and the A record for 123-123-123-123.dsl-provider.com does not match the IP address making the connection, some mailservers (certainly not all) will refuse to talk to you; others will just print 'may be forged' in a logfile and in the headers, and yet others will add a few points to a SpamAssassin score or something to that effect. There are, however, some mailservers that refuse to talk to an IP address that does not have _any_ reverse DNS record. This does stop a lot of spam, but it also blocks a lot of legitimate email traffic, though if an admin wants to take that risk, it's their prerogative.


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## artcurmudgeon (Jan 14, 2010)

As a sysadmin, I use FreeBSD extensively in our school district..

Mail/Webmail-postfix & Squirrellmail
Webservers - Apache
MySQL
Moodle
DNS

Everything that we use that must be stable and rock solid we use FreeBSD and I wouldnt have it any other way.


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## bjs (Jan 14, 2010)

I use FreeBSD for the following servers and services on our home lan:

Web server
Mail & Webmail server
Print server
Media server
File server
VPN server


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## Daisuke_Aramaki (Jan 14, 2010)

I do all my scientific code development on my OpenBSD and FreeBSD boxes. Standard stuff like, developing new mathematical libraries, optimization routines, implementing reverse engineering algorithms for analyzing gene expression data, to name a few. And simulations of course.

So, mostly scientific.


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## Ruler2112 (Jan 14, 2010)

artcurmudgeon said:
			
		

> Everything that we use that must be stable and rock solid we use FreeBSD and I wouldnt have it any other way.



Back when I was in high school, a classmate's father was fired as the director of 911 services because he ditched the unix server for windoze.  It's more than a little scary to think that my 911 service relies on windoze, but there's not much I can do about it either...


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## tlc337 (Jan 15, 2010)

soupbowl said:
			
		

> How do you like AFP? Been really curious about it.



I've been very happy with it.  I'm using netatalk and the mdnsd that comes with FreeBSD.  I believe that it's the exact same one that OS X uses, as far as the man pages are to be concerned.  Anecdotally, it seems to perform much better than Samba in an all OS X client environment.  I've never done metrics, though.  It worked well enough for me to completely eliminate Samba from my environment, though.

It worked great for Time Machine, too, when I was still using FreeBSD as the Time Machine host.  I've since moved my backups to a bona fide Time Capsule, as I didn't like the idea of being unsupported.  But, it worked perfectly for that.  I even rebuilt a Macbook completely from the Time Machine (without installing OS X first).


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## Grim (Mar 1, 2010)

I use only freebsd for my servers (currently 15):
Apache server + PHP 
MySQL and PostgreSQL
Tomcat 6
Zope
Plone
Mail server (postfix + squirrelmail)
DNS
File server
VoIP

and now I'm testing JBoss 5 (it seems to run well)


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## tangram (Mar 1, 2010)

My home server is running and serving:
- MLDonkey
- SSH
- Unreal Tournament
- Ventrilo
- Samba

And I'm planning on setting up OpenVPN in the coming week.


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## qsecofr (Mar 2, 2010)

*doing things*

apart from all the regular SOHO type sysadmin chores
building a stock market technical analysis, portfolio management application


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## Uniballer (Mar 2, 2010)

*Environmental Control System for Greenhouses*

I built a system that manages the environment in a 20,000+ ft^2 range of greenhouses.  I used 1-wire hardware for temperature sensing and remote output control, plus the printer port and an Opto-22 board for some devices.  User interface is by web browser.  Currently running FreeBSD-6.4 on a Pentium-100.


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## z662 (Mar 3, 2010)

Aside from my PC (FreeBSD 8 + KDE 4.3.5) ... my primary server runs apache, ssh, irc, ftp and dns (all separately installed within jails) I am still working on setting up a firewall/router/gateway in OpenBSD, er when I have spare time that is.  And Jbos, you have quite a collection of servers...I cant say I am not jealous, other than for your electric bill.


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## sniper007 (Mar 3, 2010)

My old Pentium 3 run as:



> gateway
> NAT
> PF
> DHCP
> ...



and now want to set afpd for my new macbook


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## Jahrik (Oct 17, 2011)

New to FreeBSD.  I managed to set up a gateway for my LAN with:
DHCPD
PF
NAT
SSH
and trying like hell to get SQUID running 
Been having a lot of fun learning FreeBSD along the way.


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## fluca1978 (Oct 24, 2011)

I use it as a firewall machine (with pf), a nas (zfs+samba) and as my main laptop (desktop usage).


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## Sfynx (Oct 24, 2011)

So far I used it for:
- A home server using a single ZFS mirror vdev, doing DNS, DHCP, hosting some of my e-mail using Postfix SMTP, Samba file serving, Apache/MySQL/PHP and Ruby on Rails web serving (mainly for testing), SABnzbd+ usenet downloading. It is a 32-bit Atom N270 mini-ITX box with 2 GB RAM, so needed some ZFS tweaking and does not get the disk performance it should (caps out on CPU). But it gets the job done, and it is stable and very power efficient..

- A corporate file server using ZFS, obvious goal: storing lots of stuff and doing it without data loss 

- Two VPS instances to host web sites on that need a better connection and power stability than my home location can give me.

All running 8.2-RELEASE by the way.

I'm in the process of setting up a snappier ZFS home server using 9.0-RC1 to test things like new ZFS features and whatnot.


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