'Must-have' basic tools from ports for a server?

[Mjölnir]

I'm collecting a list of outstanding utterly useful tools from ports(7) to be installed into the minimum base (i.e. root filesystem) of a general purpose server. These tools should be

• rock solid & reliable
• provide real benefit
• add your own criteria...
• I'll add your propositions to the list every now and then
  Unfortunately, there seems to be a bug in forum software? I can't add choices...
  Hopefully this will be fixed soon!

IMHO the best candidates are those tools that can help to get a broken system up & running again, but YMMV, please enlighten me (your feedback will be added here, too).
Eventually your feedback will install these ports(7) into the base system of my "new" (used parts) home server and make it better than it would be if I decide it alone. You can give me and others a hint by clicking the Like button under those posts where you think the proposed tool is really good.

• Please try to keep this list as short as possible and as extensive as neccessary!
  LOG until I can edit the poll:

Evicted: pkg (commonly considered "as if" in base FreeBSD)
New entries: dmidecode, lsblk, tmux, iftop, puppet, ansible, nmap, nping ...
Special: firstboot-pkgs
IRC there's a tool already in base capable of doing the same as lsof, forgot the name.

 

[SirDice]

My list:

 

[MG]

Tmux, iftop.

 

[Espionage724]

I'd only use pkg on that list, but wouldn't that be required with pkgbase?

 

[Mjölnir]

My list:

Do you mean you took the list or why can't I add more choices? Gimme back da list, mista! Now! ASAP, yesterday!

 

[SirDice]

A minimal system has nothing besides the base. But depending on how I need to manage those systems I might "pre-install" puppet or python (for ansible). Nothing else, the system would get everything that's needed through ansible or puppet and thus doesn't need to be "baked" in.

But "pre-install" could mean in the image, or I'm going to use sysutils/firstboot-pkgs, which is probably the better idea as it would automatically install the 'latest' available version.

 

[Mjölnir]

A minimal system has nothing besides the base. But depending on how I need to manage those systems I might "pre-install" puppet or python (for ansible). Nothing else, the system would get everything that's needed through ansible or puppet and thus doesn't need to be "baked" in.

But "pre-install" could mean in the image, or I'm going to use sysutils/firstboot-pkgs, which is probably the better idea as it would automatically install the 'latest' available version.

Thx a lot. But I can't add these to the list; when I click "edit", I neither can change/edit the entries of the list, nor can I add more choices. Can you kindly help to fix that? Or could this be a bug on the client side, i.e. my browser?

 

[fjdlr]

KDE ?

 

[Mjölnir]

KDE ?

I will for sure install that into a jail on my server, but I'm sorry, this is the 1st proposition that will not make it into the list. Hopefully I'll stay disciplined and keep the base system very minimalistic. Only a few exceptions will break this guideline.

 

[VladiBG]

the base system already have what i need.

 

[SirDice]

I neither can change/edit the entries of the list, nor can I add more choices.

I can edit the existing ones, but not add more options. I suspect it's the max number of options for a poll.

 

[Mjölnir]

I can edit the existing ones, but not add more options. I suspect it's the max number of options for a poll.

Ok, then please add somewhere (i.e. priority is low to medium) in your todo list: increase that limit to a more reasonable # (20?). Until then, if I could be able to edit existing entries, too, I can replace the entry with the least # of votes by a new one as a workaround. I can edit my initial post to keep a log of the evicted entries.

 

[cracauer@]

Ok, then please add somewhere (i.e. priority is low to medium) in your todo list: increase that limit to a more reasonable # (20?).

You really like to tell people what to do, do you?

 

[Mjölnir]

I don't have a smartphone, thus I'm not familiar with and don't know which tools are reliable & good:

• Network interface of the box is broken, but it has bluetooth and/or wifi/wlan and/or USB.
• You have your smartphone, either with bluetooth or wifi, or just happened to have a matching USB cable in your pocket
• Provide an internet link to the box with ... <add your choice, please>

 

[Mjölnir]

You really like to tell people what to do, do you?

Feel free to add the tools of your choice to my server, making it better than I could ever do on my own.
Your experience will also guide others who read this, not just me.
I did not want to demand SirDice , but ask kindly to do me a favour. I'm sorry if my wording was ambigous.

 

[gotnull]

If it's a VM: tmux, vim, fzy, zsh, zoxide, ncdu, curl, tree, rsync
If it's real hardware I add: dmidecode, lsblk
tio (a minicom-like) is only installed on the client: my laptop.

PS:
Glad to have you back! It's nice to see that some older users are still coming around

 

[Maturin]

I find this thread pretty pointless.
You see, one may ask what can be useful to set up a certain server, but I find it intrusive to directly create a "this all must come by default list."

FreeBSD is not for single user desktops only, but also for (headless) servers or embedded, so no GUI by default (which one anyway? KDE? Please no! I hate that bloated too windows-like cr...) You see it otherwise? That's OK. You have all the right for that. But so have I. You install KDE. I don't. That's FreeBSD: Not one size fits all, not everything comes by default, so nobody needs to think of what's needed and then install it, but choices, indvidiually tailorable systems.
FreeBSD also is not for servers only.
What is a server anyway?
You have clear ideas, what your server shall do. Others like me have other ideas. Why now everybody has to have the same server as yours?
As I said in some other posts you have probably not seen when you started your quest on designing yours, I set up myself my first NAS many years ago, now running the third one. All I needed was basic FreeBSD, 'cause it all provides what it needs to do that.
Anything additional can and shall be installed individually additionally.
Example: I prefer Vim over default's vi or ee. You want nvim. Many others prefer emacs. You use cvs. I use svn, which is also used by almost nobody anymore, since most use git. I use samba to give also non BSD machines access to the NAS. You don't talk of it at all. You mention some fortune mod. To me fortune is some ancient unix toy. It's traditional, but IMO useless and superflous. I deactivated it on all my machines by default over ten years ago. Others love it, or other mods of it. Also others do media streaming from their servers...
As I said just above: It depends on what your server needs to do, besides being just a NAS accessable by NFS and over ssh, which both already come by default.
The point is: You want it that way. That's okay. So install it. I want it another way. Why shall I have ("must have") a machine like yours? You don't want to have one like mine, right? (Probably I'm being accused for having low empathy again, just for pointing out other's low empathy.)
That's FreeBSD:
Everybody can create own machines.

There are several ways, to design your own default easily.
Simplest way I can think of: You set up one machine, install all packages you want. Then you copy all the config files you edited to an extra storage space (or use cvs for that [there are other ways, too.]) Make a pkg prime-list > /path/to/filethatcontainsallmypackageswithoutversionnumber.txt
Now you can simply automate the installation, maybe with a small, primitive shell script: after basic installation let pkg work off the packageslist, then bring all your config files from the source to that machine. Voilá, your personal, individual, autoinstalling turn-key FreeBSD "distro" without installing and directly deinstalling all the unwanted stuff coming with a one size fits all.
And there are other, more elegant, more flexibel, more powerful ways to create such an "own distro" than this primitive way.

 

[Mjölnir]

Preliminary answer, sorry TL;DR, I will read the rest of your post later.

[...] You see, one may ask what can be useful to set up a certain server, but I find it intrusive to directly create a "this all must come by default list."

But this is not my intention. Most likely this is a misunderstanding. The 'must-have' in the thread title means s/th like: "I consider this port extraordinarily valuable in problematic situations, e.g. activating multiuser mode fails and the system goes into singleuser mode".

I do not want that certain ports be included and installed by default by the official base installation. Instead I'm asking for a list of commonly installed ports into a minimalistic basic server root filesystem. I.e. the members who gave feedback, some or all of them very experienced, decided they want to have that port available when s/th went wrong -- e.g. /usr/local can not be mounted -- because repairing the system is much more comfortable with that tool. Anyone who reads this thread can freely decide to pick from this list whatever s/he likes. And when s/o stumbles upon a useful port s/he wasn't aware of but decides to add to the personal list, then the flow of information created value. That's what a forum is for, isn't it? This was my intention, not more, not less.

Please feel free to add a port that served you well on a very bare minimalistic system when s/th went wrong. If you already mentioned one or two, excuse me, I'll read that later. Stay strong & keep on rockin'!

 

[atax1a]

we always install nmap and its associated nping

 

[Maturin]

this is not my intention.

OK. I misunderstood your intensions.
You see "must" is a very strong word.

 

[Mjölnir]

OK. I misunderstood your intensions.
You see "must" is a very strong word.

AFAIK the combination 'must-have' means s/th like "highly desired" or ... Like I tried to explain above!
"This gadget is a must-have for any serious gamer": Argument to sell useless crap for 10x the fair prize.

 

[SirDice]

We're probably more accustomed to reading it in a RFC 2119 context.

ask kindly to do me a favour

Nothing I can find in the admin panel regarding polls.

 

[bakul]

IMHO: the base system is fine as it is. You can create a local meta-port with additional packages you consider essential for a server.

Another suggestion is to define "roles" and associate packages, configurations, versions etc. with each role. This can then be evolved into lifetime management for machines & one can provide a centralized dashboard etc.

 

[Mjölnir]

We're probably more accustomed to reading it in a RFC 2119 context.

How did I know you wouldn't be angry at me? IDK, MUST be some kind of intuition...

Nothing I can find in the admin panel regarding polls.

That's sub-optimal... I try to edit the poll once more to exchange some entries... fails. The list is fixed for me.
If I delete the poll, can I create a new one? And if yes, can I or you transfer the votes from the old poll to the new one (and would you be so kind to do that if I can't do it at any time you like; IMHO prio is low)?
Last resort would be to open a new thread with a new poll, with a hint/link to this thread.