What is FreeBSD? To quote the official site, "FreeBSD is an advanced computer operating system used to power modern servers, desktops and embedded platforms."
I first came in to contact with FreeBSD in 2012, as a volunteer for Jupiter Broadcasting.
Since then, I have developed a detailed understanding of the operating system, and contribute
back to the project where I can.
One way in which I contribute is with the ports tree, which is the system
used by FreeBSD to obtain 3rd party software (roughly analogous to the package repos of various
Linux distros). If I have any issues with any software I use, I will either submit an issue, or
if I have the skills to resolve it, a patch. Two ports that I have contributed to are www/owncloud
and net/openldap24-server.
In addition to this, I am the maintainer for the following ports:
This website is actually powered by FreeBSD, running a combination of nginx and php-fpm. I try
to self-host where I can (in an administration sense, not a geographical one), for both
educational and privacy reasons. This means that I have configured a variety of services, including:
- Web server (nginx and php-fpm)
- Mail server (postfix, dovecot, spamassassin, opendkim)
- Monitoring software (nagios)
- File storage (OwnCloud)
- Issue tracker (BugZilla)
- Central LDAP authentication (OpenLDAP, used for JonathanPrice.org, including OwnCloud, nginx, BugZilla, etc.)
Networking is my primary area of expertise within the field of computing. I am a CCNA (for proof, go to http://www.ciscocertificates.com/verify.cfm
and enter code: 422044170044GOYK).
In my time at UIA Insurance I have implemented several network improvements,
including better performance monitoring and alerting, improved configuration backup and change detection and
layer 2 loop protection.
Whilst I would not consider myself a software developer, I make effective use of my programming ability in my
role as a systems and network administrator.
In particular, I consider myself rather adept at shell scripting. For portability reasons I try to keep conformant
with the bourne shell, although in certain cases I will instead develop for bash. One particular project I felt
would be useful for other administrators, so have published it under an open source license on GitHub:
I also have some basic web development experience. For instance, this website has been built by me using the
Materialize CSS framework. This site looks modern and clean, and is
able to dynamically resize to fit a variety of devices, including mobile platforms. I also utilise a templating
system I have developed in PHP so that I write the header and footer once, and have it replicated across all of my pages.
You can view the source code for this website on my GitHub profile here.