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All the documentation on this site can be downloaded in a variety of different formats (HTML, Postscript, PDF, and more) and compression schemes (BZip2, Zip) from the FreeBSD FTP site.

This documentation is provided and maintained by the FreeBSD Documentation Project, and we are always looking for people to contribute new documentation and maintain existing documentation.

Books

The FreeBSD FAQ (faq)
Frequently Asked Questions, and answers, covering all aspects of FreeBSD.

The FreeBSD Handbook (handbook)
A constantly evolving, comprehensive resource for FreeBSD users.

The FreeBSD Developer's Handbook (developers-handbook)
For people who want to develop software for FreeBSD (and not just people who are developing FreeBSD itself).

The FreeBSD Architecture Handbook (arch-handbook)
For FreeBSD system developers. This book covers the architectural details of many important FreeBSD kernel subsystems.

The Porter's Handbook (porters-handbook)
Essential reading if you plan on providing a port of a third party piece of software.

The PMake Tutorial (pmake)
A tutorial for the make utility. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand all the details of using make of reading and writing makefiles.

Chapter 2 of "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System" (design-44bsd)
Donated by Addison-Wesley, provides a design overview of 4.4BSD, from which FreeBSD was originally derived.

Chapter 8 of "The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide" (corp-net-guide)
Donated by Addison-Wesley, provides an in-depth look at using FreeBSD to provide printing services to Windows, NT, and Novell hosts.

The FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors (fdp-primer)
Everything you need to know in order to start contributing to the FreeBSD Documentation Project.

Articles

The Roadmap for 5-STABLE (5-roadmap)
Describes medium-term development and release engineering plans leading to the 5-STABLE branch point.

Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project (bsdl-gpl)
Describes the benefits of releasing code under a BSD license.

Building Products with FreeBSD (building-products)
How FreeBSD can help you build a better product.

Argentina.com : A Case Study (casestudy-argentina.com)
How FreeBSD helped a large ISP in Latin America.

Integration of Checkpoint VPN-1/Firewall-1 and FreeBSD IPsec (checkpoint)
How to configure Checkpoint VPN-1/Firewall-1 and FreeBSD IPsec.

The Committer's Guide (committers-guide)
Introductory information for FreeBSD committers.

Console Server Tutorial (console-server)
How to setup a FreeBSD based console server with a cheap multi-port serial card.

Contributing to FreeBSD (contributing)
How to contribute to the FreeBSD Project.

Contributing to the FreeBSD Ports Collection (contributing-ports)
How to help maintain the FreeBSD Ports Collection.

The List of FreeBSD Contributors (contributors)
A list of organizations and individuals who have helped enhance FreeBSD.

Setting up a CVS repository - The FreeBSD way (cvs-freebsd)
How to set up a CVS repository that uses the same CVSROOT infrastructure as the FreeBSD project.

CVSup Advanced Points (cvsup-advanced)
An article with some tips about the subtleties of CVSup.

Dialup firewalling with FreeBSD (dialup-firewall)
How to set up a firewall using PPP and ipfw over a dialup link with dynamically assigned IP addresses.

Creating a diskless X server (diskless-x)
How to create a diskless X server.

The Euro symbol on FreeBSD (euro)
How to configure FreeBSD and related applications to display the Euro symbol.

Explaining BSD (explaining-bsd)
An answer to the question ``What is BSD?''

FreeBSD From Scratch (fbsd-from-scratch)
How to automatically compile, install and configure a system from scratch (i.e. to an empty file system), including your favorite ports.

Filtering Bridges (filtering-bridges)
Configuring firewalls and filtering on FreeBSD hosts acting as bridges rather than routers.

Fonts and FreeBSD (fonts)
A description of the various font technologies in FreeBSD, and how to use them with different programs.

Formatting media on FreeBSD (formatting-media)
How to slice, partition, and format fixed and removable media on FreeBSD.

How to get the best results from the FreeBSD-questions mailing list (freebsd-questions)
Tips and tricks to help you maximize the chances of getting useful information from the -questions mailing list.

Working with Hats (hats)
A committer's guide to working with ``hats'' (other committers with authority over specific areas of FreeBSD).

Mirroring FreeBSD (hubs)
The all in one guide for mirroring the FreeBSD website, CVSup servers, FTP servers, and more.

Independent Verification of IPsec Functionality in FreeBSD (ipsec-must)
A method for experimentally verifying IPsec functionality.

Java, and Jakarta Tomcat (java-tomcat)
Information on setting up Java and Jakarta Tomcat on a FreeBSD system.

FreeBSD on Laptops (laptop)
Information about running FreeBSD on a laptop.

FreeBSD: An Open Source Alternative to Linux (linux-comparison)
A white paper explaining the differences between Linux and FreeBSD.

Frequently Asked Questions About The FreeBSD Mailing Lists (mailing-list-faq)
How to best use the mailing lists, such as how to help avoid frequently-repeated discussions.

An MH Primer (mh)
An introduction to using the MH mail reader on FreeBSD.

Using FreeBSD with other operating systems (multi-os)
How to install FreeBSD alongside one or more different operating systems on the same computer.

FreeBSD First Steps (new-users)
For people coming to FreeBSD and UNIX® for the first time.

Perforce in FreeBSD Development (p4-primer)
A guide to the Perforce version control system. It also describes how to manage experimental projects with the FreeBSD Perforce server.

Pluggable Authentication Modules (pam)
A guide to the PAM system and modules under FreeBSD.

Package building procedures (portbuild)
Describes the approach used by the FreeBSD port manager team to regularly build ports into packages. It describes the portbuild cluster, as well as the tools needed to do incremental, experimental, and official release package builds.

FreeBSD Problem Report Handling Guidelines (pr-guidelines)
Recommended practices for handling FreeBSD problem reports.

Writing FreeBSD Problem Reports (problem-reports)
How to best formulate and submit a problem report to the FreeBSD Project.

PXE booting FreeBSD (pxe)
How to create an Intel PXE server using FreeBSD, and how to configure a FreeBSD client to boot from a PXE server.

FreeBSD as a greylist mail server (relaydelay)
Implementing a greylist mail server on FreeBSD using Sendmail, MySQL, Perl and the relaydelay software. This is an excellent method to use in the fight against spam.

FreeBSD Release Engineering (releng)
Describes the approach used by the FreeBSD release engineering team to make production quality releases of the FreeBSD Operating System. It describes the tools available for those interested in producing customized FreeBSD releases for corporate rollouts or commercial productization.

FreeBSD Release Engineering for Third Party Packages (releng-packages)
Describes the approach used by the FreeBSD release engineering team to produce a high quality package set suitable for official FreeBSD release media. This document is a work in progress, but eventually it will cover the process used to build a clean package set on the FreeBSD.org "Ports Cluster", how to configure any other set of machines as a ports cluster, how to split up the packages for the release media, and how to verify that a package set is consistent.

Serial and UART devices (serial-uart)
Detailed information about the use of serial ports on FreeBSD, including several multi-port serial cards.

FreeBSD and Solid State Devices (solid-state)
The use of solid state disk devices in FreeBSD.

Storage Devices (storage-devices)
Detailed information about using storage devices with FreeBSD, including ESDI disks, and SCSI disks, tape drives, and CDROM drives.

Choosing the FreeBSD Version That Is Right For You (version-guide)
How to decide which version of FreeBSD is right for your needs. Topics include the releases, branches, the difference between -CURRENT and -STABLE, and the current scheduling goals of the project.

Bootstrapping Vinum: A Foundation for Reliable Servers (vinum)
A gentle introduction to failure-resilient servers and step-by-step instructions for building one with Vinum.

Design elements of the FreeBSD VM system (vm-design)
An easy to follow description of the design of the FreeBSD virtual memory system.

Zip-drives and FreeBSD (zip-drive)
How to format, mount, and use an Iomega Zip (SCSI, IDE, or parallel) Drive on FreeBSD.

On other web sites

Various independent efforts have also produced a great deal of useful information about FreeBSD.

Books

  • A Comprehensive Guide to FreeBSD - an attempt at a more readable, "book-like" tutorial explaining the FreeBSD Operating System. Intended for people new to both FreeBSD and UNIX. Currently a work in progress.

Articles