Howto Install man pages if you must

[lohphat]

@daplumber said in Howto Install man pages if you must:

curl -JLO http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/12.2-RELEASE/base.txz

Note the architectures should match as appropriate (e.g. arm64 instead of amd64):

curl -JLO http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arm64/12.3-RELEASE/base.txz

Also, when removing the temp area where the download and extraction took place, you can't delete some object because the have the "schg" flag set. You need to clear the flags on the handful of files before you can remove them.

e.g.:

chflags -R noschg *

Your instructions worked of 22.05 on my SG-3100 even though I grabbed the arm64 tarball. Thanks! I now have local man pages working.

[JKnott]

@daplumber

I usually search google for "freebsd man <command>" for the commands where the Linux man pages aren't suitable (yes, there are some differences).

[lohphat]

@jknott I wonder if the added man pages will be wiped during a pfSense release. Does it nuke everything under /usr/share so that the man/ directory is removed, and the copied man and apropos binaries in /usr/bin ?

[JKnott]

@lohphat

Can't say for certain, but I suspect it might.

[daplumber]

@lohphat Yes, yes it does nuke the manpages when FreeBSD gets updated.

[daplumber]

@daplumber said in Install man pages if you must:

cp -r man /usr/share

That copy should probably be:
cp -l man* apropos whatis /usr/bin

and yes, you'll need to do the:

chflags -R noschg *

to remove the based you created, I forgot to include that.

Interestingly “makewhatis” worked for me after the above cp.

[lohphat]

@jknott Confirmed. Just updated 22.05 -> 23.01 and man pages nuked.

[daplumber]

@lohphat Yup, any major update, and 22 -> 23 counts, will require the man pages to be reinstalled. Fir 23 you’ll also have to source the CURRENT base file instead of RELEASE to be consistent.

[lohphat]

@daplumber I couldn't find the 14.0-CURRENT release file for arm64 at that FTP site only 13.1-RELEASE and BETA[1|2] directories were available.

http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arm64/

What concerns me is that pfSense 23.01 is running on FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT which isn't set to RELEASE until July 2023. https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/schedule/

[daplumber]

@lohphat No matter opinions on the issue the base file you want for the man pages is in: http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/arm64/14.0-CURRENT/

I’m not developing pfSense, so I’m not really concerned about the decision. It doesn’t seem to be affecting reliability or stability so far. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Jinxed it, sigh. Just noticed my dnsbl service seems to keep crashing and getting watchdogged, so I’ll need to check into that… later.

[Dobby_]

please don´t forget performing a proper "chmod"
after downloading files from outside.

FreeBSD chmod