The long awaited and completely revised second edition of what has become the FreeBSD bible is sure to remain the perfect resource for FreeBSD system administrators. This straightforward, practical, and comprehensive book takes the reader through the intricacies of the platform and teaches how to build, configure, and manage a FreeBSD server, offering friendly explanations, background information, troubleshooting suggestions, and copious examples throughout.

FreeBSD—the powerful, flexible, and free Unix-like operating system—is the preferred server for many enterprises. But it can be even trickier to use than either Unix or Linux, and harder still to master.

Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition is your complete guide to FreeBSD, written by FreeBSD committer Michael W. Lucas. Lucas considers this completely revised and rewritten second edition of his landmark work to be his best work ever; a true product of his love for FreeBSD and the support of the FreeBSD community. Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd Edition covers installation, networking, security, network services, system performance, kernel tweaking, filesystems, SMP, upgrading, crash debugging, and much more, including coverage of how to:

• Use advanced security features like packet filtering, virtual machines, and host-based intrusion detection
• Build custom live FreeBSD CDs and bootable flash
• Manage network services and filesystems
• Use DNS and set up email, IMAP, web, and FTP services for both servers and clients
• Monitor your system with performance-testing and troubleshooting tools
• Run diskless systems
• Manage schedulers, remap shared libraries, and optimize your system for your hardware and your workload
• Build custom network appliances with embedded FreeBSD
• Implement redundant disks, even without special hardware
• Integrate FreeBSD-specific SNMP into your network management system.

Whether you're just getting started with FreeBSD or you've been using it for years, you'll find this book to be the definitive guide to FreeBSD that you've been waiting for.