Introduction

SSH, or secure shell, is a network protocol that provides a secure, encrypted way to communicate with and administer your servers. As SSH is the most common way of working with a FreeBSD server, you will want to familiarize yourself with the different ways that you can authenticate and log in to your server. While there are several ways of logging into a FreeBSD server, this tutorial will focus on setting up and using SSH keys for authentication.

How SSH Keys Work

An SSH server can authenticate clients using a variety of methods. The most common methods include password and SSH key authentication. While passwords do provide a barrier against unauthorized access, using SSH keys is generally much more secure.

The issue with passwords is that they are typically are created manually, without sufficient length or complexity in content. Therefore, they can be susceptible to being compromised by brute force attacks. SSH keys provide a reliably secure alternative. Continue reading How To Configure SSH Key-Based Authentication on a FreeBSD Server →

Introduction

FreeBSD is a secure, high performance operating system that is suitable for a variety of server roles. In this guide, we will cover some basic information about how to get started with a FreeBSD server.

Step One — Log In with SSH

The first step you need to take to begin configuring your FreeBSD server is to log in.

On DigitalOcean, you must provide a public SSH key when creating a FreeBSD server. This key is added to the server instance, allowing you to securely login from your home computer using the associated private key. To learn more about how to use SSH keys with FreeBSD on DigitalOcean, follow this guide.

To login to your server, you will need to know your server’s public IP address. For DigitalOcean Droplets, you can find this information in the control panel. The main user account available on FreeBSD servers created through DigitalOcean is called freebsd. This user account is configured with sudo privileges, allowing you to complete administrative tasks.

To log into your FreeBSD server, use the ssh command. You will need to specify the freebsd user account along with your server’s public IP address: Continue reading How To Get Started with FreeBSD 10.1 →

Introduction

FreeBSD is a free and open source Unix-like operating system and a popular server platform. While FreeBSD and other BSD-based systems share much in common with systems like Linux, there are points where these two families diverge in important ways.

In this guide, we will briefly discuss some commonalities between FreeBSD and Linux before moving on to a more extended discussion on the important differences between them. Many of the points below can accurately be applied to the greater family of BSD-derived systems, but as a consequence of our focus, we will be referring mainly to FreeBSD as a representative of the family. Continue reading A Comparative Introduction to FreeBSD for Linux Users →