FreeBSD Perfect Server Guide

[adamh09]

I would really like to see a guide on how to install and configure a FreeBSD web server as everywhere I look on the web I am always directed back to the FreeBSD site and I cannot understand a thing on there as they expect everyone to have a savvy level of knowledge of FreeBSD.

Anyone up for the task?
Adam

[falko]

Our "Perfect Server" guides prepare a system for the installation of ISPConfig, and ISPConfig doesn't support FreeBSD, that's why we don't have a FreeBSD tutorial.

[adamh09]

Well could someone show how to set up a freebsd server using an ISPConfig alternative?

[woods01]

I came here looking for the same thing but it does appear as if this site is all Linux.

I know alot of the control panels out there have issues running on FreeBSD. cPanel claims to support FreeBSD (somewhat) but even with the moderate FreeBSD administration experience I have I could never get cPanel to do much.

Theres a few sites that show a pretty good LAMP FreeBSD setup. It would be cool to see howtoforge get into FreeBSD.

[bad_crow]

Did you try to use the ports in freebsd ? I think there are some web servers in it ready to install with a "make install clean".

[woods01]

Actually since you mention it I believe there is a single port that offers a handful of what would be LAMP software.

I always found the howtoforge articles to be helpful and alot of them could be more generalized instead of simply focusing on one distro. Often times people want to run multiple instances of something therefore using the packages systems isn't the way to go.

[bad_crow]

Free and open BSD are two OS I need to test (there is a freeBSD category which needs some filling ), I installed them and tried for a couple of days each but I haven't been further than basics.
Since I have not enough time to do things seriously for the moment, I'll write that down on my list (which is getting longer ) of "TO DO when enough time".

I agree that most of the articles present could be more generalized.
But, generalizing an article has two limits :
The author must have the time to do so seriously (Personnally, I test my tutorials by reinstalling a new OS and following the tutorial to the letter to see what problem I encounter), it takes time to test on 4 or 5 different OS.

The second limit is that most of users are not advanced users, most of them don't want to compile every single program, package manager is easier but has no compatibility between distros.

Moreover, some tutorial authors have no knowledge of certain OS that prevent them to do something good with them (for example, I won't do a tutorial for open BSD since I don't know it enough to do something correct for linux and for BSD at the same time, you need to think about compatibility from the beginning to do so. Even disk labels and FHS are not the same, so you have to adapt).

So I perfectly agree with you, but to get this applied that's a little bit more tricky.
You need to satisfy techies with good knowledge who want something applying to their existing architecture and end users with no knowledge who want to get all up and running with minimum command lines.

Knowing that, I think the site is doing quite well trying to satisfy everyone. And because I'm wiling to satisfy everyone maybe I will do a graphic version and a compatibility/customized version for future tutorials (no time to do them for the moment).


But for the moment you are suggesting an howto, so what do you exactly need ? (be the most precise possible to help the people willing to make it).
As I understand, adamh09 needs a LAMP server, the basic way with no panel whereas woods01 needs an advanced management interface including DNS, webserver, user rights and FTP.

When I'll have some time, I'll see what I can do for you, but no promess (since I don't really know freeBSD and I don't know if I'll have the time to do something correct).