Ive read some threads in this forum that people say freebsd is more stable for hosting... i've never used freebsd.

serious questions:
Can you run EXT3 on freebsd?
apache/sendmail/bind/proftpd have been ported to freebsd right?

Whats so different between it and redhat that it would be a pain to port simplecp or any cp to freebsd?

Does it have /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow?
CP's can easily be modified to restart services without xinetd
I think useradd/usermodify are the same?
the rest is basically apache and sendmail and bind config that are universal right?

Am I missing something?

PS Please dont take this as a sarcastic post, i've never used freebsd and these are serious questions

Thanks

FreeBSD uses a different filesystem.

But, porting SimpleCP shouldn't be very hard. Most things are in the same places.

And, yes all that software you named, does work with FreeBSD.

Does the freebsd file system support journaling?

*bsd used UFS and I doubt it supports journaling

FreeBSD's default filesystem is FFS, with Soft Updates enabled it is very similar to Journaling though performance is slightly better.

For more details see: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/configtuning-disk.html -- specificaly section 6.9.2 Soft Updates, and 6.9.2.1 for a detailed explination.

The real difference is that Soft Updates uses an in memory cache and writes meta data asynchronusly whereas a Journaling file system generally writes meta data to the disk twice, the first time begin really really fast and the second one being the more permanent home.

Oh yes, one of the big advantages in heavy IO situations with Soft Updates is that a lot of meta data that would normally be written to disk never gets there, since it changes before it needs to be written.

FreeBSD will run just about any application/software that linux can (especially if you use the linux compatability feature). This includes Apache, Proftpd, BIND, any DJB software, sendmail, and almost anything else you can compile from source.

It has /etc/passwd and it has /etc/master.passwd. There is no 'useradd' and 'usermodify' commands, they are all done with the 'pw' command (pw useradd blah blah).

I think the biggest reason is because the two don't share the exact same filesystem, file structure, or commands. Also, FreeBSD hasn't been as mainstream as it seems to be today. I see many more people talking about FreeBSD now-a-days than I did a year ago. Why is it always "Red Hat" that is used for control panels, and not Slackware, Debian, or any of the other (and in my opinion much, much better) linux distributions used for the majority of control panels out there? It's just all with how the control panel is developed.

Why don't you see control panels for Solaris? It's not *that* different from FreeBSD and Linux (solaris lovers, don't throw fireballs at me, please). I just don't think there is a demand for Solaris CPs. I don't think there was a demand for FreeBSD CPs a while back. Now that more and more people are starting to use it, more and more control panels are supporting it. Maybe Solaris will join in soon? Naaaa... :) :)

OK. What ive found so far is
Freebsd doesnt have shadow password - does anyone know if I can install this?
Network/IP configuration is a little different

i dont think xinetd is there

I am finishing up the install now, and ill have a closer look

THanks for the help

I thought i saw in the bsd docs taht there is a useradd and usermod command? ill double check when its installed, :-D thanks again


is it worth it to migrate my hosting operation to freebsd?

freebsd has adduser rmuser and a few others :D

Originally posted by MaB
OK. What ive found so far is
Freebsd doesnt have shadow password - does anyone know if I can install this?
It's called /etc/master.passwd .

Originally posted by MaB
I thought i saw in the bsd docs taht there is a useradd and usermod command? ill double check when its installed, :-D thanks again


is it worth it to migrate my hosting operation to freebsd?
It's:

pw useradd blah blah

pw usermod blah blah

man pw <-- read it over carefully when you install freebsd.

Originally posted by ntwaddel
freebsd has adduser rmuser and a few others :D
Those are both scripts. Are useradd and usermod in linux scripts as well? I don't have a linux box handy.

pw isn't a script, it's a binary. The only reason I keep bringing up pw is because it's much more powerful than adduser (which is kind of lame) and rmuser (which is ok, it does the job quick and dirty).

In regards to xinetd, i believe it is installable from the ports collection.

Originally posted by MaB
OK. What ive found so far is
Freebsd doesnt have shadow password - does anyone know if I can install this?
Network/IP configuration is a little different

i dont think xinetd is there

I am finishing up the install now, and ill have a closer look

THanks for the help

FreeBSD /etc/master.passwd existed well before /etc/shadow became default on Linux.

Network config is much simples : rc.conf

You can install xinetd from ports.