[nycbug-talk] Re:FreeBSD Newbie

[Scott Robbins]

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On Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 08:49:06PM -0400, freebsd wrote:


> I got it connected. It seems that when I hit reply the email address is the address of whoever replied to me from the talk at lists.nycbug.org list. Is it the preferred method on this list to just reply to the people that reply to you directly, or is it preferred to reply to the address talk at lists.nycbug.org so that everyone can follow the thread? I know no one needs extra email in thier inbox, but sometimes everyone can benefit from the thread. If there is a moderator here maybe they could answer as I don't want to flood everyone with every response.

Many *nix technical mailing lists are like this.  It has to do with what
is known as munging headers.  When the Gentoo Linux list changed over to
this, there were some complaints, and a question was added to their faq.  

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/faq.xml#doc_chap8

<modest cough, as I'm the one who wrote the question and answer>

Each mail client has different ways of dealing with this--on this
particular list, assuming I don't forget and simply hit reply, my habit
is to just reply to the list and not the individual poster.  It's a
judgement call--for example, on FreeBSD questions, many people prefer
getting a copy of the reply that is also sent to the group.  



> 
> Anyway, I got the nic working, I can ping everything by IP or domain name, I can telnet into the machine, but I can't log in as root, is that a security feature of freebsd? Is there a graphic interface to look at all user accounts on the machine and adjust permissions?


Dan answered the question about root.  The permissions structure is
somewhat different than MS (I'm guessing that is your background from
your question about is there a graphical interface listing permissions.)

Hrrm, to answer that question--I don't know.  Don't some of the
non-lightweight desktop managers like KDE have something like that?
Hrrm, no, I think that shows directories and the permissions on them.
(I run a lighter weight window manager so I'm just going by memory.)

However, you will find that if you spend a little while getting used to
the text based files, such as /etc/group, that they are as easy, or
perhaps even easier to use than such graphical interfaces.
> 
> Also in the docs I see commands such as route(8), does that mean you have to have a security level of 8 to use the command?

Dan explained that one too--or actually, pointed you in the direction to
learn it.

Man pages can sometimes be a bit difficult to understand until you get
used to them.   (Quick hint, the answer to your question is in the
EXAMPLES section).

It can be a bit intimidating at first, and yes, it is nice to pay
someone for handholding, but it seems that you're off to a good start
using the less expensive resources such as this mailing list.  :)

Dan's site, http://www.freebsddiary.org/ is an excellent place to look
for answers to specific questions, written in a way that is usually easy
to understand.  

- -- 

Scott 

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