How to use on embedded FreeBSD

FreeBSD embedded systems like nas4free, FreeNAS etc. usually don't have curl and wget installed. The fetch(1) utility can't replace them, because it doesn't support POST and PUT requests. So I used this workaround to get curl running on this platform.

Full story in Issue #194.

Requirements

You need:

• a persistent storage (to save some files)
• your FreeBSD version and architecture (e.g. FreeBSD 10, x86-64)

1. Find curl and ca-root-nss packages

You need to get the curl binary and the ca-root-nss.crt containing trusted certificate authorities.

Search for the packages in the download archives: http://distcache.freebsd.org/

E.g., currently these would be for FreeBSD 10 x86-64:

• http://distcache.freebsd.org/freebsd:10:x86:64/latest/All/curl-7.49.0.txz
• http://distcache.freebsd.org/freebsd:10:x86:64/latest/All/ca_root_nss-3.22.2.txz

2. Download and extract

Replace the URLs found in step 1 above.

$ cd <path on your persistent storage> # e.g. nas4free: somewhere in /mnt/pool0
$ fetch -o curl.txz http://distcache.freebsd.org/freebsd:10:x86:64/latest/All/curl-7.49.0.txz
$ tar xvf curl.txz /usr/local/bin/curl
$ mv usr/local/bin/curl .
$ rm curl.txz
$ fetch -o carootnss.txz http://distcache.freebsd.org/freebsd:10:x86:64/latest/All/ca_root_nss-3.22.2.txz
$ tar xvf carootnss.txz /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt
$ mv /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt .
$ rm carootnss.txz
$ # rm -r usr # be sure you're not in / ;-)

3. Configure your shell

Your shell needs to know how to use the new curl binary. Create a file _shell_profile in same directory as above:

_shell_profile:

export CURL_CA_BUNDLE=<path on your persistent storage>/ca-root-nss.crt
export PATH=$PATH:<path on your persistent storage>

Load it in your current shell session:

$ . _shell_profile

4. Install acme.sh

Now download and install acme.sh using the advanced configuration.

./acme.sh --install --home <path on your persistent storage>

You can now use it as usual.

5. Certificate renewal with cronjob

Usually, acme.sh can't create the automatic cronjob for certificate renewal on those platforms. I use a script like this:

acme-renew.sh:

. <path on your persistent storage>/_shell_profile
acme.sh --cron --home <path on your persistent storage>

Don't forget to chmod +x acme-renew.sh.

Now find out how to create the cronjob on your system. For nas4free, you can do it in the web interface under System -> Advanced -> Cron. I scheduled it for running on the 1st of every month.