new-install

commit b07c1d2c0248d01779f341d197146cebc0a1e2cf
parent e31832ff2fe4a41534612676cd4b5b07521c84aa
Author: Chris Bracken <chris@bracken.jp>
Date:   Tue, 22 Mar 2022 09:56:10 -0700

FreeBSD: add details about disabling email

If email is disabled, you'll want to configure periodic to write to log
files instead of sending email that pile up in the spool.

Diffstat:
M
freebsd_install.md
 | 
18
++++++++++++++++--

1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/freebsd_install.md b/freebsd_install.md
@@ -23,7 +23,8 @@ the FreeBSD installer.
 2. Set hostname (should include domain name).
 3. Install `ports`.
 4. Auto disk partition. Entire disk. GPT.
-5. Network. No IPv4, IPv6.
+5. Network. Yes IPv4, no IPv6 unless you have IPv6 set up. For a non-networked
+   install select 'no' for both. We can set this up later.
 6. Set clock to UTC.
 7. Enable `sshd`, `ntpd`, `powerd`, `dumpdev`.
 8. Clean `/tmp` on startup.
@@ -71,6 +72,8 @@ Next, configure wired ethernet for DHCP. In `/etc/rc.conf`, add:
     # SYNCDHCP forces startup to wait for dhclient to return, DHCP does not.
     ifconfig_em0="SYNCDHCP"
 
+Either SYNCDHCP or DHCP is acceptable. The default is DHCP.
+
 
 ### Configure WiFi
 
@@ -104,7 +107,7 @@ router, manually assign a fixed IP address.
 
 By default, sendmail operates localhost only. If you disable it, you'll
 need to enable an alternative mail handler since the system assumes mail
-is available.
+is available. (See note below)
 
 Given that we generally want to disable root login on all hosts, it's
 useful to forward root's mail to a local user. To do so:
@@ -117,6 +120,17 @@ useful to forward root's mail to a local user. To do so:
 
 See https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/sendmail.html for details.
 
+Note: you can get away with disabling email completely, but the daily, weekly,
+monthly `periodic` jobs set up in `/etc/crontab` send email to root, so you'd
+want to configure `periodic` to log output instead of emailing it. You can do
+this by adding the following to `/etc/periodic.conf`:
+
+    daily_output=/var/log/daily.log
+    weekly_output=/var/log/weekly.log
+    monthly_output=/var/log/monthly.log
+
+More details can be found in the `periodic` man page.
+
 
 ### Set the console font