On Thu, Mar 22, 2007 at 11:30:06PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote: > Hello, > > I'm considering moving my 486 from Debian to OpenBSD. I haven't the > money to spend on a new e.g. UNIX System Administration. 4.4 BSD System > Manager's Manual is out of print. I haven't been able to google > anything freely available on the internet. My local library has had > their only UNIX book stolen (not by me). > > Since BSD came from a university, did they ever publish under the BSD > licence a SMM, and if so is it avilable free anywhere? Is there a BSD > repository of free documents similar to IBM's for AIX? > > I've got the basic Linux CLI admin skills. What I'm looking for is > indoctrination into the BSD way of doing things and the wisdom behind > it. I'm looking for a bit of the historical culture; the wisdom of ages > past. > > As a simple example. I'm used to Debian where updates can happen > without disturbing users (clones of myself mostly). On a new fast box, > one can build a patch in a short time, but then the system has to be > brought down, install the patch, then bring it back up. In years past, > how did a sysadmin with one VAX handle that? Take the computer off line > at 1700, do the build, install, and hope to have everything back up by > 0800? > > I figure that if I get an old BSD book and combine it with the > OpenBSD FAQ plus man pages, I'll be off to a good start.
Since you've already found the FAQ, you've got a good start. Add the "Books that help" page. If you don't have much money to spend, look for them used. I've got both "Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF" by Jacek Artymiak, and "Secure Architectures with OpenBSD" by Palmer and Nazario. Both are good, both walk you through quite a bit from installing to typical administration, and a bit of history thrown in. Though I knew most of what was in both books, I learned more than a few things I'm glad to know. As for your "simple example" above, I've seen more than once someone talk about bringing a box down for extended periods to update. I just don't get that. It's easy enough to update sources or apply the patch and rebuild while the system is up. Sure, it can add a lot of load, but OpenBSD is fairly stable under load in terms of still serving web pages, or doing mail, etc. Then the only total downtime is during reboot if you've updated the kernel, or restart time on daemons if you've only updated userland. Last, but not least, check for a user group in your area! Also check out http://metabug.org/, where you can get streaming and recorded presentations (one coming in a week). -- Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD Users Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/ http://www.stilyagin.com/darrin/ |
