Progress in *BSD world is very fast, everyday patch released, program update etc

to get that update via internet FreeBSD provide a few tools :

• cvs, not so familiar for beginner
• cvsup, very famous in FreeBSD, can update ports, source even for backup purpose
• portsnap, only for port update, in FreeBSD tree since 6.0
• csup, cvsup alternative, already integrated in 6.2 tree, no need to install, compatible with cvsup

example for cvs :

cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.freesbie.org:/cvs co -P freesbie2

will fetch freesbie2 and located in current directory where command issued

example for cvsup :

cvsup -g -L2 ports-supfile -h cvsup12.freebsd.org

will update ports information

example for portsnap :

portsnap update

will update ports data, faster than portsnap extract

csup example :

cvsup -g -L2 stable-supfile -h cvsup12.freebsd.org

will update stable source

P.S :

make sure port 5999/tcp open for cvsup and csup

portsnap will use port 80

As big fan of FreeBSD ports, I like to play around with ports option, like when installing php4 I was prompted with a lot of build options :

kongja# whereis php4
php4: /usr/ports/lang/php4
kongja# cd /usr/ports/lang/php4

then this ncurse option will popup

===> Found saved configuration for php4-4.4.6
===> Extracting for php4-4.4.6

read more »

Cron is special utility that process command in periodic time such ;

• doing regular backup every night
• email special report every week
• etc

cron access can be usefull but sometime not, depend on the command issued.

As super user we can list all of entire user crontab entries using log locate in /var/log

su-2.05b# tail -f /var/log/cron
Apr 30 20:30:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[81893]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Apr 30 20:30:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[81894]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null)
Apr 30 20:35:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[84459]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null)
Apr 30 20:35:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[84462]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Apr 30 20:40:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[87061]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Apr 30 20:40:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[87062]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null)
Apr 30 20:45:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[90181]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null)
Apr 30 20:45:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[90180]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Apr 30 20:50:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[93304]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Apr 30 20:50:00 erau /usr/sbin/cron[93305]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/share/cacti/poller.php > /dev/null)

pay attention on (root) entries, that mean user who run that command in this case generate data for cacti.

You can run the command as root or sudo, otherwise you’ll get “permission denied” message

-bash-2.05b$ tail -f /var/log/cron
tail: /var/log/cron: Permission denied
-bash-2.05b$ su
Password:
kongja# tail -f /var/log/cron
Apr 30 20:36:00 kongja /usr/sbin/cron[81442]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/pfstat -q >>/var/log/pfstat)
Apr 30 20:37:00 kongja /usr/sbin/cron[81504]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/pfstat -q >>/var/log/pfstat)
Apr 30 20:38:00 kongja /usr/sbin/cron[81567]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/pfstat -q >>/var/log/pfstat)
Apr 30 20:39:00 kongja /usr/sbin/cron[81631]: (root) CMD (/usr/local/bin/pfstat -q >>/var/log/pfstat)

happy viewing

P.S :

other usefull place to check for cron entries

/var/cron/tabs
/var/cron/atjobs
/etc/crontab