Essential FreeBSD Commands

System Information

# FreeBSD version
freebsd-version
uname -a

# Hardware info
sysctl hw.model hw.ncpu hw.physmem
dmesg | head -50

# Disk information
geom disk list
camcontrol devlist

# Memory usage
top -b -d1 | head -10
vmstat

# CPU usage
top -P

File System Operations

# Disk usage
df -h
du -sh /var/*

# Mount/unmount
mount
mount /dev/da1p1 /mnt
umount /mnt

# File permissions (same as Linux)
ls -la
chmod 755 file
chown user:group file

Package Management (pkg)

# Update package repository
pkg update

# Upgrade all packages
pkg upgrade

# Search packages
pkg search nginx

# Install package
pkg install nginx

# Remove package
pkg delete nginx

# List installed packages
pkg info

# Package details
pkg info nginx

Service Management

# List all services
service -l

# Start/stop/restart service
service nginx start
service nginx stop
service nginx restart

# Check service status
service nginx status

# Enable service at boot
sysrc nginx_enable="YES"

# View all enabled services
sysrc -a | grep enable

# Service configuration file
cat /etc/rc.conf

Network Commands

# Interface configuration
ifconfig
ifconfig em0

# Routing table
netstat -rn

# Active connections
netstat -an
sockstat -4

# DNS lookup
host google.com
drill google.com

# Network statistics
netstat -s

Process Management

# List processes
ps aux
ps auxww  # Wide output

# Process tree
ps -auxd

# Interactive process viewer
top
htop  # After: pkg install htop

# Kill process
kill PID
kill -9 PID

# Find process by name
pgrep nginx
pkill nginx

User Management

# Add user (interactive)
adduser

# Add user to group
pw groupmod wheel -m username

# User information
id username
finger username

# Switch user
su - username

# Lock/unlock account
pw lock username
pw unlock username

System Logs

# View logs
less /var/log/messages
tail -f /var/log/messages

# Authentication log
cat /var/log/auth.log

# Dmesg (boot messages)
dmesg
dmesg | tail

# Log rotation
newsyslog

ZFS Commands

# Pool status
zpool status
zpool list

# Dataset list
zfs list

# Snapshots
zfs list -t snapshot
zfs snapshot tank/data@snap1
zfs rollback tank/data@snap1

Useful Shortcuts

# FreeBSD manual pages
man command
man 5 rc.conf  # Section 5 (file formats)
apropos keyword

# Command location
which command
whereis command

# Shutdown/reboot
shutdown -h now
shutdown -r now
reboot