I’ve tried to get Flash working with Firefox on FreeBSD a number of times, but haven’t been able to get it just right until recently.

I’m using,
FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE #0: Sun May 7 04:32:43 UTC 2006
with
firefox-2.0_2,1.

The following worked for me (Thanks to a post from Lluis López: here).

1. First install linuxpluginwrapper from the ports tree:

cd usr/ports/www/linuxpluginwrapper
make
make install
make clean

2. Now go to /usr/src and get this patch and patch

cd /usr/src
patch < /home/work/rtld_dlsym_hack.diff
cd libexec/rtld-elf
make clean
make
make install

Substitute the correct path above !! (I downloaded the patch to /home/work/).

This assumes you have sources installed. If the tree under /usr/src is empty, then

sysinstall

[configure >> distributions >> src >> all ]

See The FreeBSD handbook if you’ve forgotten how to use sysinstall.

3. Install linux-flashplugin7

cd /usr/ports/www/linux-flashplugin7
make
make install
make clean

4. Copy /usr/local/share/examples/linuxpluginwrapper/libmap.conf-FreeBSD6 to /etc/libmap.conf

cp /usr/local/share/examples/linuxpluginwrapper/libmap.conf-FreeBSD6 /etc/libmap.conf

No need to edit /etc/libmap.conf.

5. Add symlinks in /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins to libflashplayer.so and flashplayer.xpt to

cd /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins
ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/linux-mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so .
ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/linux-mozilla/plugins/flashplayer.xpt .

6. Restart your browser, and navigate to about:plugins, you should see shockwave_flash listed:

File name:
libflashplayer.so

Shockwave Flash 7.0 r69

MIME Type	Description	Suffixes	Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash	Shockwave Flash	swf	Yes
application/futuresplash	FutureSplash Player	spl	Yes

7. Install javavmwrapper

Before we can install Java (I’m using the diablo-jdk from the FreeBSD Foundation in this example) we need to install javavmwrapper from ports.

cd /usr/ports/java/javavmwrapper/
make
make install
make clean

8. Now we can install Java. Download the appropriate JDK package from The FreeBSD foundation and simply issue a pkg_add.

In my case,

pkg_add diablo-jdk-freebsd6.i386.1.5.0.07.01.tbz

8. We need to add a symlink in /usr/local/lib/browser to /usr/local/diablo-jdk1.5.0/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

cd /usr/local/lib/browser_plugins
ln -s /usr/local/diablo-jdk1.5.0/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so .

9. Restart your browser and navigate to about:plugins you should see

File name:

libjavaplugin_oji.so

Java(TM) Plug-in 1.5.0

MIME Type	Description	Suffixes	Enabled
application/x-java-vm	Java		Yes
application/x-java-applet	Java		Yes
application/x-java-applet;version=1.1	Java		Yes
application/x-java-applet;version=1.1.1	Java		Yes
application/x-java-applet;version=1.1.2	Java		Yes
… snipped …
application/x-java-bean;jpi-version=1.5	Java		Yes

---

I tested the Java install by trying the Rubik’s Cube Java Applet. It worked without problems.

Verifiying the Java installation at Sun’s site gives a (soft) error:

Oops! You don’t have the recommended Java installed.
Your Java version is 1.5.0. Please click the button below to get the recommended Java for your computer.

It does however verify that Java version 1.5.0 is installed.

---

Addendum: An alternative way to install Flash for Firefox, that bypasses the Linux compatibility layer altogether is to use the GNU Flash movie playergnash.

cd /usr/ports/graphics/gnash/
make
make install
make clean

Thanks to Matteo at Matteo’s Wasps’ Nest for this one. See his post for more details.

I just installed Java on my FreeBSD box. In the past it has been a nightmare to install Java due to licensing issues - BUT - the FreeBSD Foundation has negotiated a license with Sun to distribute JRE and JDK binaries for FreeBSD.

Installation is now very easy! Download the appropriate package from here and simply issue a pkg_add.

In my case it was

pkg_add diablo-jdk-freebsd6.i386.1.5.0.07.01.tbz

(I am currently running FreeBSD 6.1).

My installation baulked because javavmwrapper was not installed. A simple install from ports was all that was needed (it is a small package).

cd /usr/ports/java/javavmwrapper/
make
make install
make clean

After this I ran pkg_add again and the install went through without incident. It sure beats compiling the whole thing from sources.

There are plenty of times that you need to stop Qmail for maintainence purposes.

The qmailctl script generally does a good job of stopping qmail, but sometimes it does not quite shutdown all of the qmail processes.

[root@here]# qmailctl stop
Stopping qmail…
qmail-smtpd
qmail-send

[root@here]# qmailctl stat
/service/qmail-send: up (pid 32436) 358918 seconds, want down
/service/qmail-send/log: down 3 seconds, normally up
/service/qmail-smtpd: down 3 seconds, normally up
/service/qmail-smtpd/log: down 3 seconds, normally up
messages in queue: 142
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 0

As you can see from the output of qmailctl stat, the qmail-send program is still running. If you do a^[1]

ps waux | grep qmail | grep -v grep

you will often find output like

[root@here]# psq
root 55033 0.0 0.1 1196 480 ?? I Tue05PM 0:00.01 supervise qmail-send
qmails 55035 0.0 0.1 1340 760 ?? I Tue05PM 1:28.27 qmail-send
root 55036 0.0 0.1 1196 480 ?? I Tue05PM 0:00.01 supervise qmail-smtpd
qmaill 55040 0.0 0.1 1224 532 ?? I Tue05PM 0:29.48 multilog t s100000 n20 /var/log/qmail/qmail-send
root 55043 0.0 0.1 1216 500 ?? I Tue05PM 0:00.03 tcpserver -H -R -v -c100 0 110 qmail-popup
root 55048 0.0 0.1 1216 548 ?? I Tue05PM 0:00.02 qmail-lspawn ./Maildir
qmailr 55049 0.0 0.1 1284 684 ?? I Tue05PM 0:22.64 qmail-rspawn
qmailq 55050 0.0 0.1 1212 544 ?? I Tue05PM 0:04.69 qmail-clean
qmailr 83484 0.0 0.2 2432 1196 ?? I 2:38AM 0:00.00 qmail-remote yahoo.com webmaster@here.com there@yahoo.com
qmailr 83498 0.0 0.2 2432 1196 ?? I 2:38AM 0:00.01 qmail-remote hotmail.com webmaster@here.com you@yahoo.com

If you then run qmailctl start, you will often have the situation with qmail-send showing up as running for 1 second while the other qmail processes are up for much longer. Basically a second qmail-send is trying to start and is dying after a second. The first instance of qmail-send is still running and needs to be stopped.

The output often contains a mixture of qmail-send, qmail-remote, qmail-clean and others depending on how your mail has been setup and what is in the process of being sent/received when you issue the qmailctl stop command.

At this point, we can wait a bit, to see if qmail-send eventually goes down or whether we will have to kill it explicitly. It is worth trying another qmailctl stop at this point. If qmailctl stat shows qmail-send is still up, which is often the case, it is probably time to kill qmail-send directly.

I usually do a kill -9 qmail-send. Then follow it with psq to see what is still running. Often I have to run a number of kills and killalls, such as killall qmail-remote. We’re not really shutting down qmail very cleanly, but sometimes, especially when you’re in a hurry it makes sense to kill things rather than wait for them to terminate.

Eventually only the supervise scripts should be running,

[root@work]#psq
root 561 0.0 0.0 1148 84 con- I Sat02AM 0:00.05 supervise qmail-send
root 563 0.0 0.0 1148 84 con- I Sat02AM 0:00.06 supervise qmail-smtpd

At this stage I usually call /usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh stop. The location of your actual svscan.sh script may be different from mine.

A psq shows nothing running. A sockstat -4 | grep 25 shows nothing listening on the smtp port. Now is the time to go in and do maintainance - such as recompile qmail, dequeue mail or repair the queue.

Once you’re done, starting qmail is as simple as /usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh start.

---

[1] Actually I use this snippet quite a bit so to save time, I’ve copied it to a file called psq under /usr/local/bin

echo "ps waux | grep qmail | grep -v grep" > /usr/local/bin/psq

so that simply typing psq gives me a list of all the running qmail processes.

To get awstats to work with qmail log files I use this little script from Bob Hutchinson called qlogs4awstats.

Download the file and edit the lines below to reflect your local paths. Most likely only the third line below
will need to be edited, to reflect where you have installed awstats.

chdir(”/var/log/qmail/qmail-send”);

my $taiprog = “/usr/local/bin/tai64nlocal”;

my $mailconvprog = “/usr/local/www/awstats/tools/maillogconvert.pl standard”;

Once edited move it to /usr/local/bin and chmod it so that it is executable.

Next copy awstats.model.conf to awstats.mail.conf or whatever you want to call your conf file.
You will have to edit your awstats.mail.conf in the following places. Note that in the first line there is a space after the pipe character | .

LogFile="/usr/local/bin/qlogs4awstats 3600 | "

LogType=M

LogFormat="%time2 %email %email_r %host %host_r %method %url %code %bytesd"

HostAliases="localhost 127.0.0.1 @locals"

LevelForBrowsersDetection=0 # 0 disables Browsers detection.

LevelForOSDetection=0 # 0 disables OS detection.

LevelForRefererAnalyze=0 # 0 disables Origin detection.

LevelForRobotsDetection=0 # 0 disables Robots detection.

LevelForSearchEnginesDetection=0 # 0 disables Search engines detection.

LevelForKeywordsDetection=0 # 0 disables Keyphrases/Keywords detection.

LevelForFileTypesDetection=0 # 0 disables File types detection.

ShowSummary=HB

ShowMonthStats=HB

ShowDaysOfMonthStats=HB

ShowDaysOfWeekStats=HB

ShowHoursStats=HB

ShowDomainsStats=0

ShowHostsStats=HBL

ShowRobotsStats=0

ShowEMailSenders=HBML

ShowEMailReceivers=HBML

ShowSessionsStats=0

ShowPagesStats=0

ShowFileTypesStats=0

ShowOSStats=0

ShowBrowsersStats=0

ShowOriginStats=0

ShowKeyphrasesStats=0

ShowKeywordsStats=0

ShowMiscStats=0

ShowHTTPErrorsStats=0

ShowSMTPErrorsStats=1

You can download my sample awstats.mail.conf with the above changes from here .

When installing ports from the ports tree, I was intrigued by this message for a long time:

root@t2# make
===> Vulnerability check disabled, database not found

I never really had time to check out what the vulnerability check was and what the database it refered to was. Some time later, in an unrelated context I came across portaudit under /usr/ports/security/portaudit

The package description reads

portaudit provides a system to check if installed ports are listed in a
database of published security vulnerabilities.

After installation it will update this security database automatically and
include its reports in the output of the daily security run.

…

This sounded like a good idea, I especially liked the idea of getting the vulnerabilities reported along with the daily output run.
Once installed the message about the vulnerability check being disabled goes away, which makes sense.

Installation from ports

root@t2# cd /usr/ports/security/portaudit
root@t2# make install
===> Installing for portaudit-0.5.10
===> Generating temporary packing list
===> Checking if security/portaudit already installed

===> To check your installed ports for known vulnerabilities now, do:

/usr/local/sbin/portaudit -Fda

===> Compressing manual pages for portaudit-0.5.10
===> Registering installation for portaudit-0.5.10

Interestingly and usefully, if you try to make a port that is vulnerable, portaudit complains loudly and won’t let you build it. It suggests you cvsup the ports tree and get the latest patched version of what you are trying to install.

Here’s a sample of a mailout from one of the machine:

Checking for a current audit database:

Downloading fresh database.

32063 bytes transferred in 0.0 seconds (712.35 kBps)
New database installed.
Database created: Thu Nov 24 02:40:19 CST 2005

Checking for packages with security vulnerabilities:

Affected package: squid-2.5.11_2
Type of problem: squid — FTP server response handling denial of service.
Reference: <http ://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/portaudit/1c3142a3-4ab2-11da-932d-00055d790c25.html>

Affected package: lynx-2.8.5
Type of problem: lynx — remote buffer overflow.
Reference: <http ://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/portaudit/c01170bf-4990-11da-a1b8-000854d03344.html>

Affected package: ruby-1.8.2_4
Type of problem: ruby — vulnerability in the safe level settings.
Reference: <http ://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/portaudit/1daea60a-4719-11da-b5c6-0004614cc33d.html>

Affected package: openssl-0.9.8_1
Type of problem: openssl — potential SSL 2.0 rollback.
Reference: <http ://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/portaudit/60e26a40-3b25-11da-9484-00123ffe8333.html>

As you can see, portaudit advises of vulnerabilities in your installed software on a daily basis, allowing you to patch things in a timely manner.