Scribd
Upload
153 views

A Network Tutorial/How-To Guide For The Freebsd Os: Nick Rogness

This document provides an introduction and overview of the FreeBSD kernel. It explains that the kernel is responsible for interacting with hardware and provides functions like scheduling and networking. It describes how to rebuild the kernel to add or remove options by copying an existing kernel configuration file, modifying it to enable the desired options, and running make commands to compile and install the new kernel. Rebuilding the kernel allows it to support new hardware or enable functionality like IP firewalling.

Uploaded by

Achmad Muzaqi
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
153 views

A Network Tutorial/How-To Guide For The Freebsd Os: Nick Rogness

This document provides an introduction and overview of the FreeBSD kernel. It explains that the kernel is responsible for interacting with hardware and provides functions like scheduling and networking. It describes how to rebuild the kernel to add or remove options by copying an existing kernel configuration file, modifying it to enable the desired options, and running make commands to compile and install the new kernel. Rebuilding the kernel allows it to support new hardware or enable functionality like IP firewalling.

Uploaded by

Achmad Muzaqi
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

FreeBSD Network Tutorial/How-To Guide Page 1

A Network Tutorial/How-To Guide


for the FreeBSD OS
by Nick Rogness

The FreeBSD Kernel


Nick Rogness [email protected]

Introduction

So what is the kernel? In plain old english, it is the core part of the FreeBSD OS. The center of the
universe...or something to that effect. It is responsible for interacting with the underlying hardware.
It provides scheduling and a TCP/IP network stack, among several things.

Kernel Concepts

So who cares about the kernel? Well, it is important because it can be rebuilt to support new
hardware, turn on/off options (eg., firewall), and can be tweaked to streamline your system. In the
next section we will cover how to rebuild your kernel to do several things. It is common place on
FreeBSD help lines (mailling-lists, etc) to hear "Rebuild your kernel with options IPSEC" or "What
options are built with your kernel?"

First off, your system comes with a kernel (duh) and this kernel is called GENERIC. To display what
kernel you are running, you can type:

# uname -v
FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE #0: Fri Sep 6 02:30:32 MDT 2002 [email protected]

This kernel version happens to be 4.6-RELEASE and was compiled from sources with a config file: /
usr/src/sys/compile/GENERIC by [email protected]. What? Its rather simple actually.
Let's move onto the next section about building to further explain.

Building a Kernel

I have mentioned earlier that you can build a kernel to add or remove options (ie enable or disable
functionality). So how do you do it? Simple, first:

# cd /sys/i386/conf

http://freebsd.rogness.net/redirect.cgi?basic/kernel.html 06/23/2004 11:22:52 PM


FreeBSD Network Tutorial/How-To Guide Page 2
This directory contains a kernel config file and inormation about all available kernel options (called
LINT). Let's look:

# ls -l
total 108
-rw------- 1 root wheel 9371 Sep 13 19:35 GENERIC
-rw------- 1 root wheel 100041 Oct 6 18:34 LINT

The file called GENERIC is the config file for the GENERIC kernel. The file called LINT is for
documentation purposes. It contains all (all properly documented) kernel options available. For
example, if we wanted to enable firewall support in the kernel we would look up the options in the
LINT file and added them to our kernel config file.

The whole concept of build a kernel is based on building one of these 'config' files, which contain
different options and then running a few commands against the config file. So lets actually rebuild a
kernel! First, lets make our own kernel config file by copying the GENERIC file to another file
called LOCAL(name doesn't matter):

# cp GENERIC LOCAL

Now lets add our firewall options to enable firewalling. First let's look it up in LINT:

# less LINT
...
options IPFIREWALL #firewall
options IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE #enable logging to syslogd(8)
options IPFIREWALL_FORWARD #enable transparent proxy support
options IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE_LIMIT=100 #limit verbosity
options IPFIREWALL_DEFAULT_TO_ACCEPT #allow everything by default

Ah ha! we need to add 'options IPFIREWALL' to our LOCAL file to enable firewalling. Let's do
that:

# vi LOCAL
...[insert]
options IPFIREWALL
...[save]

OK. Now we need to do the actual rebuild. To do this we follow the following steps:

# config LOCAL

http://freebsd.rogness.net/redirect.cgi?basic/kernel.html 06/23/2004 11:22:52 PM


FreeBSD Network Tutorial/How-To Guide Page 3
Don't forget to do a ``make depend''
Kernel build directory is ../../compile/LOCAL
# cd ../../compile/LOCAL
# make depend && make

You will now see a bunch of crap fly by on your screen. This is normal. It is actually compiling a
kernel!!

Now, once the above gets done (may take a while), you will need to install the kernel. To do this,
simple type:

# make install

You will once again see a bunch of things flying by on your screen. This is normal. It is actually
installing the kernel binary in / and also correpsonding kernel modules in /modules. It also does fancy
things like making backups of your old /kernel file and modules directory.

Now, all you have to do is reboot and your new kernel will be active. You can verify this with
`uname -v` after it finishes booting up. Keep in mind that there is a lot more interesting things to do
with this process. I will save that for someone else to fill in the blanks...or you can shoot me an email
if you have questions.

http://freebsd.rogness.net/redirect.cgi?basic/kernel.html 06/23/2004 11:22:52 PM

You might also like