The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide is written for the beginning FreeBSD administrator who wants to take advantage of the power and cost savings afforded by use of this operating system on their organization's production network. FreeBSD is a UNIX-like operating system that takes its name from the Berkeley Software Distribution group. FreeBSD is a direct descendent of the original BSD UNIX code that the Computing Science Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, released. That code was used as a base for many other commercial UNIX systems, such as early HP/UX and Sun's SunOS 4.1.X

In keeping with the spirit of freely available Open Source software, this book has operating with the Microsoft (MS) operating system and Microsoft networking as a primary goal. Use of FreeBSD to solve problems in a corporate network environment is emphasized.

Basing an organizational production network on standards-based methods and protocols such as TCP/IP, is important as it permits you to mix and match FreeBSD and Windows servers and clients as you see fit. Using FreeBSD and Windows on the same network is an excellent way to do this.

The first section of this book, Chapters 1 through 3, covers preinstallation and installation of FreeBSD. Chapters 4 through 9 are intended to be taken piecemeal. Do you need a FreeBSD router to connect to the Internet? If so, skip to Chapter 5. Do you need a FreeBSD mailserver? If so, skip to Chapter 9. Although there is some order, in that later topics do build on some material introduced in earlier chapters, the main idea is to concentrate first on the sections for which you have an immediate need. Chapter 10, Advocacy, contains material that polarized the reviewers. Some loved it, some hated it; nobody lacked an opinion about it. This chapter presents all the reasons to use FreeBSD instead of Windows, and it includes some background information about FreeBSD.

The book includes a CD of the Release version of FreeBSD 4.2, this is the same CD as used in CD#1 of the 4-CD set of FreeBSD 4.2 published by BSD Inc./Walnut Creek. There is also a companion website that the Author maintains specifically for this book.