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PREFACE
Without question, the Internet-connected computer has become an essential tool in today's society.
Most people know what the Internet is, but few know that open source software has played an
important role in making it all work, powering services on the Internet for over a decade. Now you
can leverage that same open source software. Think of this book as a field guide to installing open
source software on FreeBSD.

FreeBSD is the powerful UNIX-like operating system derived from BSD Unix. BSD Unix was
developed at the University of California, Berkeley in the early '80s. Historically, software
installation on Unix-based systems has been a challenging task, but FreeBSD mitigates this issue
with its ports collection.

The FreeBSD ports collection is a system for installing programs that uses scripts to automate the
process of building software from source code. The success of this system has caused it to be
propagated to other operating systems, including NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Gentoo Linux. The ports
collection simplifies the process of building software, but new users are often left in the dark once
the build process is complete. This is especially true in the case of server applications. Server
applications require custom configuration, and most books lack detail in that area.

If you've installed software via the FreeBSD ports collection, you're probably familiar with post-
installation messages instructing you to make a copy of a sample configuration file and then modify
it to fit your setup. This can be a bewildering task for those who are new to FreeBSD or used to
graphical interfaces. This book's aim is to take you through this process step by step in as little time
as possible. I designed this book to get readers "up and running" quickly. Once you have a working
system, you're free to experiment, extend, and customize as you please.

This book attempts to fill the void for those of us who prefer the do-it-yourself approach. If you're on
a limited budget, the knowledge you gain here may help you become less dependent on costly
commercial solutions. Whether you're a small business owner looking for a reliable email server, a
curious Windows administrator, or a geek who wants to put that old computer in the closet to work,
this book is a natural first step to discovering open source server applications on FreeBSD.

THIS BOOK'S ROOTS

I graduated with an aeronautical science degree and flew airplanes for a regional airline based on the
east coast of the United States. I wanted a way to centrally host a personal website, retrieve email,
and access files while I was away from home. There were many sites offering these services at the
time, but I wanted something free, centralized, and feature-rich. I decided that the way to accomplish
this was to host it on my own server. There were a few solutions to choose from. . . .

First, I looked at proprietary software like Microsoft Windows Server, but it was cost-prohibitive.
On top of that, the hardware I possessed didn't have the extra horsepower necessary for a GUI
solution like Windows. I was left with two choices: Linux, or one of the three major BSD variants. I
decided to forgo Linux because, although it is popular and widely supported as a whole, I didn't feel
there was a specific distribution that matched the completeness of FreeBSD.

I began the task of installing and configuring FreeBSD and an array of third-party server
applications. As a new user to FreeBSD, I struggled to learn the new concepts and commands. I
visited forums, read articles, and bought books. I found a lot of information online, but many of the
how-to guides were outdated or incomplete. The constant search for information consumed a lot of

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time. Many late nights ensued, but after much perseverance, the server went live—a month after the
project began.

The server performed for months without a hitch, so well that I forgot what I had learned during its
initial inception. Six months later, I wanted to add additional server software to the system, and I
couldn't remember how to do it! This presented a problem because I didn't want to spend time
relearning all the steps I had taken months before. I began to document my efforts so I could
accelerate this process later when I needed to install something else. The documentation project grew
into the book that is now before you. With it, you'll minimize frustration and be able to consolidate
what took me months (collectively) into a weekend.

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