OpenBSD
Documentation and Frequently Asked Questions
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This FAQ is supplemental documentation to the man pages, available both in
the installed system and online. The FAQ covers the active release of
OpenBSD, currently v3.4. Note that the development version (-current) of
OpenBSD is not covered by this FAQ.
The FAQ in PDF and plain text form is available in the pub/OpenBSD/doc
directory from the FTP mirrors, along with other documents.
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1 - Introduction to OpenBSD
* 1.1 - What is OpenBSD?
* 1.2 - On what systems does OpenBSD run?
* 1.3 - Is OpenBSD really free?
* 1.4 - Why might I want to use OpenBSD?
* 1.5 - How can I help support OpenBSD?
* 1.6 - Who maintains OpenBSD?
* 1.7 - When is the next release of OpenBSD?
* 1.8 - What is included with OpenBSD?
* 1.9 - What is new in OpenBSD 3.4?
2 - Other OpenBSD Information Resources
* 2.1 - Web Pages
* 2.2 - Mailing Lists
* 2.3 - Manual Pages
* 2.4 - Reporting Bugs
3 - Obtaining OpenBSD
* 3.1 - Buying an OpenBSD CD
* 3.2 - Buying OpenBSD T-Shirts
* 3.3 - Does OpenBSD provide an ISO image for download?
* 3.4 - Downloading via FTP or AFS
* 3.5 - Obtaining Current Source Code
4 - OpenBSD 3.4 Installation Guide
* 4.1 - Overview of the OpenBSD installation procedure.
* 4.2 - Preinstallation checklist
* 4.3 - Creating bootable OpenBSD install media
* 4.4 - Booting OpenBSD install media
* 4.5 - Performing an install
* 4.6 - What files are needed for Installation?
* 4.7 - How much space do I need for an OpenBSD installation?
* 4.8 - Multibooting OpenBSD
* 4.9 - Sending your dmesg to dmesg@openbsd.org after the install
* 4.10 - Adding a file set after install
* 4.11 - What is 'bsd.rd'?
* 4.12 - Common installation problems
* 4.13 - Customizing the install process
* 4.14 - How can I install a number of similar systems?
* 4.15 - How can I get a dmesg(8) to report an install problem?
* 4.16 - Upgrading/reinstalling OpenBSD/i386 using bsd.rd-a.out.
5 - Building the System from Source
* 5.1 - OpenBSD Flavors
* 5.2 - Why do I need a custom kernel?
* 5.3 - Kernel configuration Options
* 5.4 - Building your own kernel
* 5.5 - Boot-time configuration
* 5.6 - Getting more verbose output during boot
* 5.7 - Using config(8) to change your kernel binary
* 5.8 - Common Problems when Compiling and Building
* 5.9 - How do I build an OpenBSD release?
6 - Networking
* 6.1 - Before we go any further
* 6.2 - Initial network setup
* 6.3 - How do I filter and firewall with OpenBSD?
* 6.4 - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
* 6.5 - Point to Point Protocol
* 6.6 - Tuning networking parameters
* 6.7 - Using NFS
* 6.8 - Setting up a PPTP connection in OpenBSD
* 6.9 - Setting up a bridge with OpenBSD
7 - Keyboard and Display Controls
* 7.1 - How do I remap the keyboard? (wscons)
* 7.2 - Is there gpm or the like in OpenBSD?
* 7.3 - How do I clear the console each time a user logs out?
* 7.4 - Accessing the console scrollback buffer. (alpha/macppc/i386)
* 7.5 - How do I switch consoles? (i386)
* 7.6 - How can I use a console resolution of 80x50? (i386)
* 7.7 - How do I use a serial console?
* 7.8 - How do I blank my console? (wscons)
8 - General Questions
* 8.1 - I forgot my root password... What do I do!
* 8.2 - X won't start, I get lots of error messages
* 8.3 - What is CVS, and how do I use it?
* 8.4 - What is the ports tree?
* 8.5 - What are packages?
* 8.6 - Should I use Ports or Packages?
* 8.8 - Is there any way to use my floppy drive if it's not attached
during boot?
* 8.9 - OpenBSD Bootloader (i386 specific)
* 8.10 - Using S/Key on your OpenBSD system
* 8.12 - Does OpenBSD support SMP?
* 8.13 - I sometimes get Input/output error when trying to use my tty
devices
* 8.14 - What web browsers are available for OpenBSD?
* 8.15 - How do I use the mg editor?
* 8.16 - Ksh does not appear to read my .profile!
* 8.17 - Why does my /etc/motd file get written over when I modified it?
* 8.18 - Why does www.openbsd.org run on Solaris?
* 8.19 - I'm having problems with PCI devices being detected
* 8.20 - Antialiased and TrueType fonts in XFree86
* 8.21 - Does OpenBSD support any journaling filesystems?
* 8.22 - Reverse DNS or Why is it taking so long for me to log in?
* 8.23 - Why do the OpenBSD web pages not conform to HTML4/XHTML?
* 8.24 - Why is my clock off by twenty-some seconds?
9 - Migrating from Linux
* 9.1 - Tips for Linux (and other free Unix-like OS) users
* 9.2 - Dual boot of Linux and OpenBSD
* 9.3 - Converting your Linux (or other System-7 style) password file to
BSD-style.
* 9.4 - Running Linux binaries on OpenBSD
* 9.5 - Accessing your Linux files from OpenBSD
10 - System Management
* 10.1 - When I try to su to root it says that I'm in the wrong group
* 10.2 - How do I duplicate a filesystem?
* 10.3 - How do I start daemons with the system? (Overview of rc(8))
* 10.4 - Why do users get relaying access denied when they are remotely
sending mail through my OpenBSD system?
* 10.5 - I've set up POP, but I get errors when accessing my mail through
POP. What can I do?
* 10.6 - Why does Sendmail ignore /etc/hosts file?
* 10.7 - Setting up a Secure HTTP Server using SSL(8)
* 10.8 - I made changes to /etc/passwd with vi(1), but the changes didn't
seem to take place. Why?
* 10.9 - How do I add a user? or delete a user?
* 10.10 - How do I create a ftp-only account?
* 10.11 - Setting up user disk quotas
* 10.12 - Setting up KerberosV Clients and Servers
* 10.13 - Setting up an Anonymous FTP Server
* 10.14 - Confining users to their home dir's in ftpd(8).
* 10.15 - Applying patches in OpenBSD.
* 10.16 - Tell me about chroot() Apache?
* 10.17 - I don't like the standard root shell!
* 10.18 - What else can I do with ksh?
11 - Performance Tuning
* 11.1 - Disk I/O
* 11.2 - Hardware Choices
* 11.3 - Why aren't we using async mounts?
* 11.4 - Tuning your monitor resolution under XFree86
12 - Platform-Specific Questions
* 12.1 - General hardware notes
* 12.2 - DEC Alpha
* 12.3 - HP 9000 series 300, 400
* 12.4 - HPPA
* 12.5 - i386
* 12.6 - Mac68k
* 12.7 - MacPPC
* 12.8 - MVME68k
* 12.9 - SPARC
* 12.10 - UltraSPARC
* 12.11 - DEC VAX
14 - Disk Setup
* 14.1 - Using OpenBSD's disklabel(8)
* 14.2 - Using OpenBSD's fdisk(8)
* 14.3 - Adding extra disks in OpenBSD
* 14.4 - How to swap to a file
* 14.5 - Soft Updates
* 14.6 - How does OpenBSD/i386 boot?
* 14.7 - What are the issues regarding large drives with OpenBSD?
* 14.8 - Installing Bootblocks - i386 specific
* 14.9 - Preparing for disaster: Backing up and Restoring from tape.
* 14.10 - Mounting disk images in OpenBSD
* 14.11 - Help! I'm getting errors with IDE DMA!
* 14.13 - RAID options with OpenBSD
PF User's Guide
* Basic Configuration
+ Getting Started
+ Lists and Macros
+ Tables
+ Packet Filtering
+ Network Address Translation
+ Traffic Redirection (Port Forwarding)
+ Shortcuts For Creating Rulesets
* Advanced Configuration
+ Runtime Options
+ Scrub (Packet Normalization)
+ Anchors and Named (Sub) Rulesets
+ Packet Queueing and Prioritization
+ Address Pools and Load Balancing
+ Packet Tagging
* Additional Topics
+ Logging
+ Performance
+ Issues with FTP
+ Authpf: User Shell for Authenticating Gateways
* Example Rulesets
+ Example #1: Firewall for Home or Small Office
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Commonly Encountered Issues
* Upgrading/reinstalling OpenBSD/i386 using bsd.rd-a.out.
* Common Installation Problems
* What is new in OpenBSD 3.4?
* How do I upgrade my system?
* Packet Filter
* Should I use Ports or Packages?
* How do I set up a multi-boot system?
* Issues with Large Drives and OpenBSD
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Recent Updates
* FAQ 14 - IDE DMA errors
* FAQ 14 - How does OpenBSD/i386 boot?
* FAQ 4 - Upgrading/reinstalling OpenBSD/i386 using bsd.rd-a.out.
* PF FAQ updated for 3.4
* FAQ updated for OpenBSD 3.4
* FAQ 1 - What's new in OpenBSD 3.4?
* FAQ 4, Improved overview of the installation process
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The FAQ maintainer is Nick Holland.
Additional contributors to the FAQ include Joel Knight, Eric Jackson, Wim
Vandeputte and Chris Cappuccio.
For information about and assisting in the translation of this FAQ and the
rest of the OpenBSD website, see the translation page.
Questions and comments regarding the FAQ may be directed to
faq@openbsd.org. General questions about OpenBSD should be directed to the
appropriate mail list.
OpenBSD FAQ Copyright © 1998-2004 OpenBSD
$OpenBSD: index.html,v 1.209 2004/04/27 02:32:46 nick Exp $
"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire
catalogue."
Sears, Roebuck, and Co., Consumer's Guide, 1897
==============================================================================
1 - Introduction to OpenBSD
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Table of Contents
* 1.1 - What is OpenBSD?
* 1.2 - On what systems does OpenBSD run?
* 1.3 - Is OpenBSD really free?
* 1.4 - Why might I want to use OpenBSD?
* 1.5 - How can I help support OpenBSD?
* 1.6 - Who maintains OpenBSD?
* 1.7 - When is the next release of OpenBSD?
* 1.8 - What is included with OpenBSD?
* 1.9 - What is new in OpenBSD 3.4?
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1.1 - What is OpenBSD?
The OpenBSD project produces a freely available, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based
UNIX-like operating system. Our goals place emphasis on correctness, security,
standardization, and portability. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most
binaries from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSDI, SunOS, and HPUX.
This FAQ specifically covers only the most recent release of OpenBSD, version
3.4.
1.2 - On what systems does OpenBSD run?
OpenBSD 3.4 runs on the following platforms:
* alpha - FTP only
* hp300 - FTP only
* hppa - FTP only
* i386 - CD bootable
* mac68k - FTP only
* macppc - CD bootable
* mvme68k - FTP only
* mvme88k - Experimental, FTP only
* sparc - CD bootable
* sparc64 - CD bootable
* vax
bootable means that OpenBSD will boot directly from the CD. The CD set will
boot on several hardware platforms. See chapter 3 of this FAQ for details of
obtaining OpenBSD on CD.
Previous releases of OpenBSD also had a port for:
* amiga - removed after the 3.2 release
* sun3 - removed after the 2.9 release
* arc - removed after the 2.3 release
* pmax - removed after the 2.7 release
OpenBSD does not currently support more than one processor. See FAQ 8, SMP for
more info.
1.3 - Is OpenBSD really free?
OpenBSD is all free. The binaries are free. The source is free. All parts of
OpenBSD have reasonable copyright terms permitting free redistribution. This
includes the ability to REUSE most parts of the OpenBSD source tree, either
for personal or commercial purposes. OpenBSD includes NO further restrictions
other than those implied by the original BSD license. Software which is
written under stricter licenses cannot be included in the regular distribution
of OpenBSD. This is intended to safeguard the free use of OpenBSD. For
example, OpenBSD can be freely used for personal use, for academic use, by
government institutions, by non-profit making organizations and by commercial
organizations. OpenBSD, or parts of it, can also be freely incorporated into
commercial products.
For further reading on other popular licenses read: OpenBSD Copyright Policy.
The maintainers of OpenBSD support the project largely from their own pockets.
This includes the time spent programming for the project, equipment used to
support the many ports, the network resources used to distribute OpenBSD to
you, and the time spent answering questions and investigating users' bug
reports. The OpenBSD developers are not independently wealthy and even small
contributions of time, equipment, and resources make a big difference.
1.4 - Why might I want to use OpenBSD?
New users frequently want to know whether OpenBSD is superior to some other
free UNIX-like operating system. That question is largely unanswerable and is
the subject of countless (and useless) religious debates. Do not, under any
circumstances, ask such a question on an OpenBSD mailing list.
Below are some reasons why we think OpenBSD is a useful operating system.
Whether OpenBSD is right for you is a question that only you can answer.
* OpenBSD runs on many different hardware platforms.
* OpenBSD is thought of by many security professionals to be the most secure
UNIX-like operating system as the result of a never-ending comprehensive
source code security audit.
* OpenBSD is a full-featured UNIX-like operating system available in source
form at no charge.
* OpenBSD integrates cutting-edge security technology suitable for building
firewalls and private network services in a distributed environment.
* OpenBSD benefits from strong ongoing development in many areas, offering
opportunities to work with emerging technologies with an international
community of programmers and end-users.
1.5 - How can I help support OpenBSD?
We are greatly indebted to the people and organizations that have contributed
to the OpenBSD project. They are acknowledged by name on the donations page.
OpenBSD has a constant need for several types of support from the user
community. If you find OpenBSD useful, you are strongly encouraged to find a
way to contribute. If none of the suggestions below are right for you, feel
free to propose an alternative by sending e-mail to donations@openbsd.org.
* Buy an OpenBSD CD set. It includes the current full release of OpenBSD,
and is bootable on many platforms. It also generates revenue to support
the OpenBSD project, and reduces the strain on network resources used to
deliver the distribution via the Internet. This inexpensive three-CD set
includes full source. Remember, your friends need their own copy!
* Donate money. The project has a constant need for cash to pay for
equipment, network connectivity, and expenses relating to CD publishing.
Manufacturing CDs requires an up-front out-of-pocket investment for the
OpenBSD developers, without guaranteed return. Send e-mail to
donations@openbsd.org to find out how to contribute. Even small donations
make a profound difference.
* Donate equipment and parts. The project has a constant need for general
and specific hardware. Items such as IDE and SCSI disks, and various types
of RAM are always welcome. For other types of hardware such as computer
systems and motherboards, you should inquire as to current need. Write to
donations@openbsd.org to arrange for shipment.
* Donate your time and skills. Programmers who enjoy writing operating
systems are naturally always welcome, but there are literally dozens of
other ways that people can be useful. Follow mailing lists and help answer
new-user questions.
* Help maintain documentation by submitting new FAQ material (to
faq@openbsd.org). Form a local user group and get your friends hooked on
OpenBSD. Make a case to your employer for using OpenBSD at work. If you're
a student, talk to your professors about using OpenBSD as a learning tool
for Computer Science or Engineering courses. It's also worth mentioning
one of the most important ways you should not try to "help" the OpenBSD
project: do not waste your time engaging in operating system flame wars.
It does not help the project to find new users and can cause substantial
harm to important relationships that developers have with other
developers.
1.6 - Who maintains OpenBSD?
OpenBSD is maintained by a development team spread across many different
countries. The project is coordinated by Theo de Raadt, located in Canada.
1.7 - When is the next release of OpenBSD?
The OpenBSD team makes a new release every six months, with target release
dates of May 1 and November 1. More information on the development cycle can
be found here.
1.8 - What is included with OpenBSD?
OpenBSD is distributed with a number of third-party software products,
including:
* XFree86 4.3.0 the X Window environment. For i386, v3.3 X servers are also
included for additional graphic chipset support. Installed with the x*.tgz
install file sets.
* GCC 2.95.3 GNU C Compiler. The OpenBSD team has added the Propolice stack
protection technology, enabled by default, and used throughout the OpenBSD
userland and by default on applications compiled on OpenBSD. Installed as
part of the comp34.tgz file set.
* Perl 5.8.0, with patches and improvements from the OpenBSD team.
* Apache 1.3.28 web server. The OpenBSD team has added default chrooting,
privilege revocation, and other security-related improvements. Also
includes mod_ssl 2.8 and DSO support.
* OpenSSL 0.9.7b, with patches and improvements from the OpenBSD team.
* Groff 1.15 text processor.
* Sendmail 8.12.9 mail server, plus the parse8.359.2.8 security patch.
* BIND 9.2.2 DNS server. OpenBSD has implemented many improvements in chroot
operation and other security-related issues.
* Lynx 2.8.4rel.1 text web browser. With HTTPS support added, plus patches
from the OpenBSD team.
* Sudo v1.6.7p5, allowing users to run individual commands as root.
* Ncurses 5.2.
* KAME IPv6.
* Heimdal 0.6rc1 with patches
* OpenSSH 3.7.1
As can be seen, the OpenBSD team often patches third-party products
(typically) to improve the security or quality of the code. In some cases, the
user will see no difference in operation, in other cases, there ARE
operational differences which may impact some users. Keep these enhancements
in mind before blindly adding different versions of the same software.
Of course, additional applications can be added through the OpenBSD packages
and ports system.
1.9 - What is new in OpenBSD 3.4?
The complete list of changes made to OpenBSD 3.3 to create OpenBSD 3.4 can be
found here, however here are some changes the OpenBSD team anticipate will
require some special note to people upgrading or installing OpenBSD 3.4 who
are familiar with older versions:
* i386 Platform has switched to ELF. The ELF executable file format offers
greater flexibility in memory layout over the older a.out format, and was
required for our W^X implementation on i386. (W^X is a fine-grained memory
permissions layout, ensuring that memory which can be written to by
application programs can not be executable at the same time and vice
versa. This raises the bar on potential buffer overflows and other
attacks: as a result, an attacker is unable to write code anywhere in
memory where it can be executed.) Upgrading by source is NOT an option.
Binary upgrades are possible, but very difficult, requiring uninstalling
all existing packages before upgrade and reinstalling them after upgrade.
There are many other potential issues here, the OpenBSD team HIGHLY
recommends you reinstall from scratch. Note that an a.out binary emulation
is provided by sysctl for binary-only applications that require it. If you
are doing an upgrade, you will almost certainly need to enable this.
* Binary Emulations are disabled by default. This was done to make it more
difficult to run a malicious program written for another platform on
OpenBSD. This will prevent many ports from working properly until the
emulation is activated as needed by use of sysctls. The standard GENERIC
kernel has these options included, just disabled. No kernel recompile is
needed. For more information, see this article. If you are doing an
upgrade, you will almost certainly need to enable compat_aout.
* Kerberos IV authentication has been removed. If you chose to upgrade
rather than reinstall, you must remove any references to krb4 in /etc/
login.conf before doing the upgrade, or you can have difficulty logging
into an i386 machine in multi-user mode. If you have already upgraded and
encountered this problem, you can login and fix it by following the
directions here. Removing the old krb4 modules from /usr/libexec/auth
would also be wise.
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$OpenBSD: faq1.html,v 1.57 2004/03/26 23:10:55 nick Exp $
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2 - Other OpenBSD Information Resources
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Table of Contents
* 2.1 - Web Pages
* 2.2 - Mailing Lists
* 2.3 - Manual Pages
* 2.4 - Reporting Bugs
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2.1 - Web Pages of Interest
The official website for the OpenBSD project is located at: http://
www.OpenBSD.org.
A lot of valuable information can be found here regarding all aspects of the
OpenBSD project.
The OpenBSD Journal is an OpenBSD-focused news and opinion site.
Many users have set up sites and pages with OpenBSD specific information. As
with everything on the Internet, a good search engine is going to make your
life easier, as will a healthy dose of skepticism. As always, do not blindly
enter commands you do not understand into your computer.
2.2 - Mailing Lists
The OpenBSD project maintains several popular mailing lists which users should
subscribe to and follow. To subscribe to a mailing list, send an e-mail
message to majordomo@openbsd.org. That address is an automated subscription
service. In the body of your message, on a single line, you should include a
subscribe command for the list you wish to join. For example:
subscribe announce
The list processor will reply to you, asking for confirmation of your intent
to join the list, so that others can not subscribe you to a flood of unwanted
e-mail. The message will include instructions for several different ways to
confirm, including a list server web page link, responding to the confirmation
message or responding to majordomo@openbsd.org. Use whatever method is
convenient to you. You will note that all three techniques involve a unique
and time limited identifying number, such as A56D-70D4-52C3, again to make
sure you are really the person who requested this mail list subscription (this
is real "opt-in").
Once you have confirmed your intent to join, you will be immediately added to
the list, and the list processor will notify you that you were successfully
added.
To unsubscribe from a list, you will again send an e-mail message to
majordomo@openbsd.org. It might look like this:
unsubscribe announce
If you have any difficulties with the mailing list system, please first read
the help file which can be obtained by sending an e-mail message to
majordomo@openbsd.org with a message body of "help".
Your subscription to the OpenBSD mail lists can also be maintained through the
web interface at http://lists.openbsd.org
Some of the more popular OpenBSD mailing lists are:
* announce - Important announcements. This is a low-volume list.
* security-announce - Announcements of security issues. This is a low volume
list.
* misc - General user questions and answers. This is the most active list,
and should be the "default" for most questions.
* bugs - Bugs received via sendbug(1) and discussions about them.
* source-changes - Automated mailing of CVS source tree changes. Every time
a developer commits a change to the OpenBSD source tree, CVS will send out
a copy of the (usually brief) commit message via this list.
* ports - Discussion of the OpenBSD Ports Tree.
* ports-changes - Automated mailing of ports-specific CVS source tree
changes.
* advocacy - Discussion on advocating OpenBSD, and topics that are just too
off-topic for misc.
Before posting a question on misc or any other mailing list, please check the
archives, for most common questions have been asked repeatedly. While it might
be the first time you have encountered the problem or question, others on the
mailing lists may have seen the same question several times in the last week,
and may not appreciate seeing it again. If asking a question possibly related
to hardware, always include a dmesg(8)!
You can find several archives, other mailing list guidelines and more
information on the mailing lists page.
An unofficial mailing list that may be of interest to new users of OpenBSD and
Unix is the OpenBSD Newbies list.
2.3 - Manual Pages
OpenBSD comes with extensive documentation in the form of manual pages, as
well as longer documents relating to specific applications. Considerable
effort is made to make sure the man pages are up-to-date and accurate. In all
cases, the man pages are considered the authoritative source of information
for OpenBSD.
To access the manual pages and other documentation, be sure that you installed
the man34.tgz and misc34.tgz file sets.
Here is a list of some of the most useful manual pages for new users:
Getting Started
* afterboot(8) - things to check after the first complete boot.
* help(1) - help for new users and administrators.
* hier(7) - layout of filesystems.
* man(1) - display the on-line manual pages.
* intro(1) - introduction to general commands, also see the intros to the
other sections of the manual: intro(2), intro(3), intro(4) (note: intro(4)
is platform specific), intro(5), intro(6), intro(7), intro(8), and intro
(9).
* adduser(8) - command for adding new users.
* vipw(8) - edit the master password file.
* disklabel(8) - read and write disk pack label.
* reboot, halt(8) - stop and restart the system.
* shutdown(8) - close down the system at a given time.
* dmesg(8) - redisplay the kernel boot messages
* sudo(8) - don't log in as root, but run commands as root.
For more advanced users
* boot(8) - system bootstrapping procedures.
* login.conf(5) - format of the login class configuration file.
* ifconfig(8) - configure network interface parameters.
* netstat(1) - show network status.
* boot_config(8) - how to change kernel configuration at boot.
* release(8) - build an OpenBSD release.
* sendbug(1) - send a problem report (PR) about OpenBSD to a central support
site.
* sysctl(8) - get or set kernel state.
* style(9) - OpenBSD kernel source code style guide.
You can find all the OpenBSD man pages on the web at http://www.openbsd.org/
cgi-bin/man.cgi as well as on your computer if you install the man34.tgz file
set.
In general, if you know the name of a command or a manual page, you can read
it by executing "man command". For example: "man vi" to read about the vi
editor. If you don't know the name of the command, or if "man command" doesn't
find the manual page, you can search the manual page database by executing
"apropos something" or "man -k something", where "something" is a likely word
that might appear in the title of the manual page you're looking for. For
example:
# apropos "time zone"
tzfile (5) - time zone information
zdump (8) - time zone dumper
zic (8) - time zone compiler
The parenthetical numbers indicate the section of the manual in which that
page can be found. In some cases, you may find manual pages with identical
names living in separate sections of the manual. For example, assume that you
want to know the format of the configuration files for the cron daemon. Once
you know the section of the manual for the page you want, you would execute
"man n command", where n is the manual section number.
# man -k cron
cron (8) - clock daemon
crontab (1) - maintain crontab files for individual users
crontab (5) - tables for driving cron
# man 5 crontab
In addition to the UNIX manual pages, there is a typesettable document set
(included in the misc34.tgz file set). It lives in the /usr/share/doc
directory. You can format each document set with a "make" in the appropriate
subdirectory. The psd subdirectory is the Programmer's Supplementary Documents
distribution. The smm subdirectory is the System Manager's Manual. The usd
subdirectory is the UNIX User's Supplementary Documents distribution. You can
perform your "make" in the three distribution subdirectories, or you can
select a specific section of a distribution and do a `make' in its
subdirectory. Some of the subdirectories are empty. By default, formatting the
documents will result in PostScript output, suitable for printing. The
PostScript output can be quite large -- you should assume 250-300% increase in
volume. If you do not have access to a PostScript printer or display, you may
also format the documents for reading on a terminal display. In each Makefile
you'll need to add the flag "-Tascii" to each instance of the groff(1)
commands (or execute it by hand). Some of the documents use the ms formatting
macros, and some use the me macros. The Makefile in each document subdirectory
(eg, /usr/share/doc/usd/04.csh/Makefile) will tell you which one to use. For
example:
# cd /usr/share/doc/usd/04.csh
# groff -Tascii -ms tabs csh.1 csh.2 csh.3 csh.4 csh.a csh.g > csh.txt
# more csh.txt
The UNIX manual pages are generally more current and trustworthy than the
typesettable documents. The typesettable documents sometimes explain
complicated applications in more detail than the manual pages do.
For many, having a hardcopy of the man page can be useful. Here are the
guidelines to making a printable copy of a man page.
How do I display a man page source file? (i.e. one whose filename ends in a
number, like tcpdump.8).
This is found throughout the src tree. The man pages are found in the tree
unformatted, and many times through the use of CVS, they will be updated. To
view these pages simply :
# nroff -mandoc <file> | more
How do I get a plain man page with no formatting or control characters?
This is helpful to get the man page straight, with no non-printable
characters.
Example:
# man <command> | col -b
How can I get a PostScript copy of a man page that's print-ready?
Note that [man_src_file] must be the man page source file (probably a file
that ends in a number; e.g., tcpdump.8). The PostScript versions of the man
pages look very nice. They can be printed or viewed on-screen with a program
like gv (GhostView). GhostView can be found in our Ports Tree. Use the
following groff(1) command options for getting a PostScript version from an
OpenBSD system man page:
# groff -mandoc -Tps [man_src_file] > outfile.ps
2.4 - Reporting Bugs
Before submitting any bug report, please read http://www.openbsd.org/
report.html.
Proper bug reporting is one of the most important responsibilities of end
users. Very detailed information is required to diagnose most serious bugs.
Developers frequently get bugs reports via e-mail such as this:
From: joeuser@example.com
To: bugs@openbsd.org
Subject: HELP!!!
I have a PC and it won't boot!!!!! It's a 486!!!!!
Hopefully most people understand why such reports get summarily deleted. All
bug reports should contain detailed information. If Joe User had really
expected someone to help find this bug, he or she would have supplied more
information... something like this:
From: smartuser@example.com
To: bugs@openbsd.org
Subject: 3.3-beta panics on a SparcStation2
OpenBSD 3.2 installed from an official CD-ROM installed and ran fine
on this machine.
After doing a clean install of 3.3-beta from an FTP mirror, I find the
system randomly panics after a period of use, and predictably and
quickly when starting X.
This is the dmesg output:
OpenBSD 3.3-beta (GENERIC) #9: Mon Mar 17 12:37:18 MST 2003
deraadt@sparc.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC
real mem = 67002368
avail mem = 59125760
using 200 buffers containing 3346432 bytes of memory
bootpath: /sbus@1,f8000000/esp@0,800000/sd@1,0
mainbus0 (root): SUNW,Sun 4/75
cpu0 at mainbus0: CY7C601 @ 40 MHz, TMS390C602A FPU; cache chip bug
- trap page uncached
cpu0: 64K byte write-through, 32 bytes/line, hw flush cache enabled
memreg0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf4000000
clock0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf2000000: mk48t02 (eeprom)
timer0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf3000000 delay constant 17
auxreg0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7400003
zs0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf1000000 pri 12, softpri 6
zstty0 at zs0 channel 0 (console i/o)
zstty1 at zs0 channel 1
zs1 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf0000000 pri 12, softpri 6
zskbd0 at zs1 channel 0: reset timeout
zskbd0: no keyboard
zstty2 at zs1 channel 1: mouse
audioamd0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7201000 pri 13, softpri 4
audio0 at audioamd0
sbus0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf8000000: clock = 20 MHz
dma0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0x400000: rev 1+
esp0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0x800000 pri 3: ESP100A, 25MHz, SCSI ID 7
scsibus0 at esp0: 8 targets
sd0 at scsibus0 targ 1 lun 0: <SEAGATE, ST1480 SUN0424, 8628> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd0: 411MB, 1476 cyl, 9 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 843284 sec total
sd1 at scsibus0 targ 3 lun 0: <COMPAQPC, DCAS-32160, S65A> SCSI2 0/direct fixed
sd1: 2006MB, 8188 cyl, 3 head, 167 sec, 512 bytes/sec, 4110000 sec total
le0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0xc00000 pri 5: address 08:00:20:13:10:b9
le0: 16 receive buffers, 4 transmit buffers
cgsix0 at sbus0 slot 1 offset 0x0: SUNW,501-2325, 1152x900, rev 11
wsdisplay0 at cgsix0
wsdisplay0: screen 0 added (std, sun emulation)
fdc0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7200000 pri 11, softpri 4: chip 82072
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
root on sd0a
rootdev=0x700 rrootdev=0x1100 rawdev=0x1102
This is the panic I got when attempting to start X:
panic: pool_get(mclpl): free list modified: magic=78746572; page 0xfaa93000;
item addr 0xfaa93000
Stopped at Debugger+0x4: jmpl [%o7 + 0x8], %g0
RUN AT LEAST 'trace' AND 'ps' AND INCLUDE OUTPUT WHEN REPORTING THIS PANIC!
DO NOT EVEN BOTHER REPORTING THIS WITHOUT INCLUDING THAT INFORMATION!
ddb> trace
pool_get(0xfaa93000, 0x22, 0x0, 0x1000, 0x102, 0x0) at pool_get+0x2c0
sosend(0x16, 0xf828d800, 0x0, 0xf83b0900, 0x0, 0x0) at sosend+0x608
soo_write(0xfac0bf50, 0xfac0bf70, 0xfac9be28, 0xfab93190, 0xf8078f24, 0x0)
at soo_write+0x18
dofilewritev(0x0, 0xc, 0xfac0bf50, 0xf7fff198, 0x1, 0xfac0bf70) at
dofilewritev+0x12c
sys_writev(0xfac87508, 0xfac9bf28, 0xfac9bf20, 0xf80765c8, 0x1000, 0xfac0bf70)
at sys_writev+0x50
syscall(0x79, 0xfac9bfb0, 0x0, 0x154, 0xfcffffff, 0xf829dea0) at syscall+0x220
slowtrap(0xc, 0xf7fff198, 0x1, 0x154, 0x1, 0xfac87508) at slowtrap+0x1d8
ddb> ps
PID PPID PGRP UID S FLAGS WAIT COMMAND
27765 8819 29550 0 3 0x86 netio xconsole
1668 29550 29550 0 3 0x4086 poll fvwm
15447 29550 29550 0 3 0x44186 poll xterm
8819 29550 29550 35 3 0x4186 poll xconsole
1238 29550 29550 0 3 0x4086 poll xclock
29550 25616 29550 0 3 0x4086 pause sh
1024 25523 25523 0 3 0x40184 netio XFree86
*25523 25616 25523 35 2 0x44104 XFree86
25616 30876 30876 0 3 0x4086 wait xinit
30876 16977 30876 0 3 0x4086 pause sh
16977 1 16977 0 3 0x4086 ttyin csh
5360 1 5360 0 3 0x84 select cron
14701 1 14701 0 3 0x40184 select sendmail
12617 1 12617 0 3 0x84 select sshd
27515 1 27515 0 3 0x184 select inetd
1904 1 1904 0 2 0x84 syslogd
9125 1 9125 0 3 0x84 poll dhclient
7 0 0 0 3 0x100204 crypto_wa crypto
6 0 0 0 3 0x100204 aiodoned aiodoned
5 0 0 0 3 0x100204 syncer update
4 0 0 0 3 0x100204 cleaner cleaner
3 0 0 0 3 0x100204 reaper reaper
2 0 0 0 3 0x100204 pgdaemon pagedaemon
1 0 1 0 3 0x4084 wait init
0 -1 0 0 3 0x80204 scheduler swapper
Thank you!
See report.html for more information on creating and submitting bug reports.
Detailed information about your hardware is necessary if you think the bug
could be in any way related to your hardware or hardware configuration.
Usually, dmesg(8) output is sufficient in this respect. A detailed description
of your problem is necessary. You will note that the dmesg described the
hardware, the text explained why Smart User thought the system was not broken,
(ran 3.2 properly), how this crash was caused (starting X), and the output of
the debugger's "ps" and "trace" commands. In this case, Smart User provided
output captured on a serial console; if you can not do that, you will have to
use paper and pencil to record the crash. (This was a real problem, and the
information in the above report helped lead to a repair of this issue which
impacted Sun4c systems.)
If Smart User had a working OpenBSD system from which he wanted to submit a
bug report, he would have used the sendbug(1) utility to submit his bug report
to the GNATS problem tracking system. Obviously you can't use sendbug(1) when
your system won't boot, but you should use it whenever possible. You will
still need to include detailed information about what happened, the exact
configuration of your system, and how to reproduce the problem. The sendbug(1)
command requires that your system be able to send electronic mail successfully
on the Internet.
After submitting a bug report via sendbug(1), you will be notified by e-mail
about the status of the report. You may be contacted by developers for
additional information or with patches that need testing. You can also monitor
the archives of the bugs@openbsd.org mailing list, details on the mailing list
page, or query the bug report database status at the on-line Bug Tracking
System.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq2.html,v 1.74 2004/04/21 02:11:29 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
3 - Obtaining OpenBSD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 3.1 - Buying an OpenBSD CD
* 3.2 - Buying OpenBSD T-Shirts
* 3.3 - Does OpenBSD provide an ISO image for download?
* 3.4 - Downloading via FTP or AFS
* 3.5 - Obtaining Current Source Code
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.1 - Buying an OpenBSD CD
Purchasing an OpenBSD CD is generally the best way to get started. Visit the
ordering page to purchase your copy: http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html.
There are many good reasons to own an OpenBSD CD:
* CD sales support ongoing development of OpenBSD.
* Development of a multi-platform operating system requires constant
investment in equipment.
* Your support in the form of a CD purchase has a real impact on future
development.
* The CD contains binaries (and source) for all supported platforms.
* The CD is bootable on several platforms, and can be used to bootstrap a
machine without a pre-existing installed operating system.
* The CD is useful for bootstrapping even if you choose to install a
snapshot.
* Installing from CD is faster! Installing from CD preserves network
connectivity resources.
* OpenBSD CDs always come with very nice stickers. Your system isn't fully
complete without these. You can only get these stickers by buying a CD set
or donating hardware.
If you're installing a release version of OpenBSD, you should use a CD.
3.2 - Buying OpenBSD T-Shirts
Yes, OpenBSD has t-shirts for your wearing enjoyment. You can view these at
http://www.OpenBSD.org/tshirts.html. Enjoy :)
3.3 - Does OpenBSD provide an ISO image for download?
Some other open source operating systems are commonly distributed as CD-ROM
ISO images. This is not how OpenBSD is distributed.
The OpenBSD project does not make the ISO images used to master the official
CDs available for download. The reason is simply that we would like you to buy
the CD sets, helping fund ongoing OpenBSD development. The official OpenBSD
CD-ROM layout is copyright Theo de Raadt. Theo does not permit people to
redistribute images of the official OpenBSD CDs. As an incentive for people to
buy the CD set, some extras are included in the package as well (artwork,
stickers etc).
Note that only the CD layout is copyrighted, OpenBSD itself is free. Nothing
precludes someone else from downloading OpenBSD and making their own CD. If
for some reason you want to download a CD image, try searching the mailing
list archives for possible sources. Of course, any OpenBSD ISO images
available on the Internet either violate Theo de Raadt's copyright or are not
official images. The source of an unofficial image may or may not be
trustworthy; it is up to you to determine this for yourself.
We suggest that people who want to download OpenBSD for free use the FTP
install option. For those that need a bootable CD for their system, bootdisk
ISO images (named cd34.iso) are available for a number of platforms which will
then permit the rest of the system to be installed via FTP. These ISO images
are only a few megabytes in size, and contain just the installation tools, not
the actual file sets.
3.4 - Downloading via FTP or AFS
There are numerous international mirror sites offering FTP access to OpenBSD
releases and snapshots. AFS access is also available. You should always use
the site closest to you. Before you begin fetching a release or snapshot, you
may wish to use ping(8) and traceroute(8) to determine which mirror site is
nearest to you and whether that nearest mirror is performing adequately. Of
course, your OpenBSD release CD is always closer than any mirror. Access
information is here:
http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html.
3.5 - Obtaining Current Source Code
Source to OpenBSD is freely redistributable and available at no charge.
Generally the best way to get started with a current source tree is to install
the source from the most recent CD and then configure AnonCVS to update it
regularly. Information about AnonCVS, including how to set it up, is available
here:
http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html.
or see FAQ 8, CVS
If you don't have sufficient network bandwidth to support AnonCVS, or if your
Internet access is via UUCP, you can still keep your source current by using
CTM instead of AnonCVS. If that's your situation, then starting with a recent
release CD is even more important. Information about CTM, including how to set
it up, is available here:
http://www.openbsd.org/ctm.html.
Yet another alternative is to get the source code from the web. You can do
that through cvsweb at: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq3.html,v 1.42 2004/01/01 04:13:34 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
4 - OpenBSD 3.4 Installation Guide
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 4.1 - Overview of the OpenBSD installation procedure
* 4.2 - Pre-installation checklist
* 4.3 - Creating bootable OpenBSD install media
+ 4.3.1 - Creating floppies on Unix
+ 4.3.2 - Creating floppies on Windows or DOS
+ 4.3.3 - Creating a boot CD
* 4.4 - Booting OpenBSD install media
* 4.5 - Performing an install
+ 4.5.1 - Starting the install
+ 4.5.2 - Setting up disks
+ 4.5.3 - Setting the system hostname
+ 4.5.4 - Configuring the network
+ 4.5.5 - Choosing installation media
+ 4.5.6 - Choosing filesets
+ 4.5.7 - Finishing up
* 4.6 - What files are needed for installation?
* 4.7 - How much space do I need for an OpenBSD installation?
* 4.8 - Multibooting OpenBSD/i386
* 4.9 - Sending your dmesg to dmesg@openbsd.org after the install
* 4.10 - Adding a file set after install
* 4.11 - What is 'bsd.rd'?
* 4.12 - Common installation problems
+ 4.12.1 - My Compaq only recognizes 16M RAM
+ 4.12.2 - My i386 won't boot after install
+ 4.12.3 - My machine booted, but hung at the ssh-keygen process
+ 4.12.4 - I got the message "Failed to change directory" when doing an
install
+ 4.12.5 - When I login, I get "login_krb4-or-pwd: Exec format error"
* 4.13 - Customizing the install process
* 4.14 - How can I install a number of similar systems?
* 4.15 - How can I get a dmesg(8) to report an install problem?
* 4.16 - Upgrading/reinstalling OpenBSD/i386 using bsd.rd-a.out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.1 - Overview of the OpenBSD installation procedure
OpenBSD has a robust and adaptable text-based installation procedure, and can
be installed from a single floppy disk. Most platforms follow a similar
installation procedure; however there are some differences in the details. In
all cases, you are urged to read the platform-specific INSTALL document in the
platform directory on the CD-ROM or FTP sites (for example, i386/INSTALL.i386,
mac68k/INSTALL.mac68k or sparc/INSTALL.sparc).
On most platforms, the OpenBSD installation uses a special kernel with a
number of utilities and install scripts embedded in a preloaded RAM disk.
After this kernel is booted, the operating system is extracted from a number
of compressed tar(1) (.tgz) files. There are several ways to boot this install
kernel:
* Floppy disk: Floppy disk images are provided which can be used to create
an install floppy on another Unix-like system, or on a DOS/Windows system.
Typical file names are floppy34.fs, though several platforms have multiple
floppy images available.
* CD-ROM: On several platforms a CD-ROM image (cd34.iso) is provided
allowing creation of a bootable CD-ROM. This just contains the
installation kernel - install files must still be retrieved via FTP or
other source. You can, of course, build your own CD-ROM with whatever
files and tools you desire.
* bsd.rd: The RAM disk kernel, intended for booting off either an already
existing OpenBSD partition or booting over the network.
* Network: Some platforms support booting over a network.
* Writing a file system image to disk: a filesystem image that can be
written to an existing partition, and then can be booted.
* Bootable Tape: Some platforms support booting from tape. These tapes can
be made following the INSTALL.platform instructions.
Not every platform supports all boot options:
* alpha: Floppy, CD-ROM, writing a floppy image to hard disk.
* hp300: CD-ROM, network.
* hppa: Network.
* i386: Floppy, CD.
* mac68k: Installed (and booted) using utilities running on Mac OS. See
INSTALL.mac68k for details.
* macppc: CD-ROM, network.
* mvme68k: Network, bootable tape.
* sparc: Floppy, CD-ROM, network, writing image to existing swap partition,
bootable tape.
* sparc64: Floppy (U1/U2 only), CD-ROM, network, writing image to existing
partition.
* vax: Floppy, network.
All platforms other than mac68k can also use a bsd.rd to reinstall or upgrade.
Once the install kernel is booted, you have several options of where to get
the install file sets. Again, not every platform supports every option.
* CD-ROM: Of course, we prefer you use the Official CD-ROM set, but for
special needs, you can also make your own.
* FTP: Either one of the OpenBSD FTP mirror sites or your own local FTP
server holding the file sets.
* HTTP: Either one of the OpenBSD HTTP mirror sites or your own local web
server holding the file sets.
* Local disk partition: In many cases, you can install file sets from
another partition on a local hard disk. For example, on i386, you can
install from a FAT partition or a CD-ROM formatted in ISO9660, Rock Ridge
or Joliet format. In some cases, you will have to manually mount the file
system before using it.
* NFS: Some platforms support using NFS mounts for the file sets.
* Tape: File sets can also be read from a supported tape.
4.2 - Pre-installation checklist
Before you start your install, you should have some idea what you want to end
up with. You will want to know the following items, at least:
* Machine name
* Hardware installed and available
+ Verify compatibility with your platform's hardware compatibility page
+ If ISA, you also need to know hardware settings, and confirm they are
as OpenBSD requires.
* Install method to be used (CD-ROM, FTP, etc.)
* How will the system be updated and patched?
+ If done locally, you will need to have sufficient space available for
the source tree and building it.
+ Otherwise, you will need access to another machine to build a patched
release on.
* Desired disk layout
+ Does existing data need to be saved elsewhere?
+ Will OpenBSD co-exist on this system with another OS? If so, how both
will be booted? Will you need to install a "boot manager"?
+ Will the entire disk be used for OpenBSD, or do you want to keep an
existing partition/OS (or space for a future one)?
+ How do you wish to sub-partition the OpenBSD part of your disk?
* Network settings, if not using DHCP:
+ Domain name
+ Domain Name Server(s) (DNS) address
+ IP addresses and subnet masks for each NIC
+ Gateway address
* Will you be running the X Window System?
4.3 - Creating bootable OpenBSD install media
As examples, we will look at the installation images available for the i386
and sparc platforms.
The i386 platform has five separate installation disk images to choose from:
* floppy34.fs (Desktop PC) supports many PCI and ISA NICs, IDE and simple
SCSI adapters and some PCMCIA support. Most users will use this image.
* floppyB34.fs (Servers) supports many RAID controllers, and some of the
less common SCSI adapters. However, support for many standard SCSI
adapters and many EISA and ISA NICS has been removed.
* floppyC34.fs (Laptops) supports the CardBus and PCMCIA devices found in
many laptops.
* cdrom34.fs is, in effect a combination of all three boot disks. It can be
used to make a bootable 2.88M floppy, or more commonly, as a boot image
for a custom recordable CD.
* cd34.iso is an ISO9660 image that can be used to create a bootable CD with
most popular CD-ROM creation software on most platforms. This is
cdrom34.fs in a "ready-to-record" format.
Yes, there may be situations where one install disk is required to support
your SCSI adapter and another disk is required to support your network
adapter. Fortunately, this is a rare event, and can usually be worked around.
The sparc platform has three separate installation disk images to choose from:
* floppy34.fs: Supports systems with a floppy disk.
* cd34.iso An ISO image usable to make your own CD for booting SPARC systems
with a CD-ROM.
* miniroot34.fs Can be written to a swap partition and booted.
4.3.1 - Creating floppies on Unix
To create a formatted floppy, use the fdformat(1) command to both format and
check for bad sectors.
# fdformat /dev/rfd0c
Format 1440K floppy `/dev/rfd0c'? (y/n): y
Processing VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV done.
If your output is like the above example, then the disk is OK. However, if you
do not see ALL "Vr"'s then the disk is most likely bad, and you should try a
new one.
Note that some Unix-like systems have different commands for formatting
floppies. Refer to your system's documentation for the exact procedure.
Once you have a clean, formatted floppy it is time to write the installation
image to floppy. For this, you can use the dd(1) utility. An example usage of
dd(1) is below:
# dd if=floppy34.fs of=/dev/rfd0c bs=32k
Once the image is written, check to make sure that the copied image is the
same as the original with the cmp(1) command. If the diskette is identical to
the image, you will just see another prompt.
# cmp /dev/rfd0c floppy34.fs
4.3.2 - Creating floppies on Windows or DOS
This section describes how to write the installation images to floppy disk
under Windows or DOS. You can get the tools mentioned below from the tools
directory on any of the ftp mirrors, or from the 3.4/tools directory on CD1 of
the OpenBSD CD set.
To prepare a floppy in MS-DOS or Windows, first use the native formatting
tools to format the disk.
To write the installation image to the prepared floppy you can use rawrite,
fdimage, or ntrw. rawrite will not work on Windows NT, 2000 or XP.
Note that FDIMAGE.EXE and RAWRITE.EXE are both MS-DOS applications, and thus
are limited to MS-DOS's "8.3" file naming convention. As floppyB34.fs and
floppyC34.fs have longer file names, you will have to find out how your system
stored the file in "8.3 format" before using FDIMAGE.EXE or RAWRITE.EXE to
make your boot floppies.
Example usage of rawrite:
C:\> rawrite
RaWrite 1.2 - Write disk file to raw floppy diskette
Enter source file name: floppy34.fs
Enter destination drive: a
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press -ENTER- : Enter
Example usage of fdimage:
C:\> fdimage -q floppy34.fs a:
Example usage of ntrw:
C:\> ntrw floppy34.fs a:
3.5", 1.44MB, 512 bytes/sector
bufsize is 9216
1474560 bytes written
4.3.3 - Making a CD-ROM
You can create a CD-ROM using either the cd34.iso file or, in the case of the
i386 platform, you can also use the cdrom34.fs as the bootable floppy image
that is used to boot an i386 system from CD-ROM. The exact details here are
left to the reader to determine with the tools they have at their disposal.
Some of the tools in OpenBSD are:
* mkhybrid(8)
* cdrecord, part of the cdrtools collection in the OpenBSD Ports System.
4.4 - Booting OpenBSD install media
Booting i386
Booting an install image on the i386 PC platform is nothing new to most
people. If you are using a floppy disk, simply insert the floppy into the
floppy drive and boot the system. The install image will then load, provided
floppy boot is enabled in your BIOS. If you want to boot from CD, you must go
into your system's BIOS and set the boot options to allow booting from CD.
Some older BIOSes do not have this option, and you must use a floppy for
booting your installation image. Don't worry though; even if you boot from
floppy you can still install from the CD.
Booting sparc/sparc64
NOTE: On the sparc64 platform, only the SBus machines (Ultra 1, Ultra 2) are
bootable from floppy.
To boot from floppy, place the floppy disk with the OpenBSD installation image
on it into the floppy drive. Then use the following command to boot from the
floppy:
ok boot floppy
To boot from CD-ROM, place the OpenBSD CD-ROM disk into the drive. If your Sun
only has one CD-ROM drive, then just go to the boot prompt, where you can
'boot cdrom':
ok boot cdrom
Of course, this will only work in new command mode. If you are at the old
command mode prompt (a right arrow), type 'n' for the new command mode. (If
you are using an old sparc that is pre-sun4c, you probably don't have a new
command mode. In this case, you need to experiment.) If you have multiple
CD-ROM devices, you need to boot from the correct one. Try probe-scsi from the
new command mode.
ok probe-scsi
Target 0
Unit 0 Disk QUANTUM LIGHTNING 365S
Target 1
Unit 0 Removable Disk QUANTUM EMPIRE_1080S
Target 3
Unit 0 Removable Disk Joe's CD-ROM
Figure out which disk is the CD-ROM you want to boot from. Note the target
number.
ok boot /sbus/esp/sd@X,0
4.5 - Performing an install
4.5.1 - Starting the install
Whatever your means of booting is, it is now time to use it. During the boot
process, the kernel and all of the programs used to install OpenBSD are loaded
into memory. The most common problem when booting is a bad floppy disk or a
drive alignment problem. The boot floppy is quite tightly packed -- any bad
spot will cause problems.
At almost any point during the OpenBSD install process, you can terminate the
current install attempt by hitting CTRL-C and can restart it without rebooting
by running install at the shell prompt.
When your boot is successful, you will see a lot of text messages scroll by.
This text, on many architectures in white on blue, is the dmesg, the kernel
telling you what devices have been found, and where. Don't worry about
remembering this text, as a copy is saved as /var/run/dmesg.boot. On some
architectures, SHIFT+PGUP will let you examine text that has scrolled off the
screen.
Then, you will see the following:
rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02
erase ^?, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell? i
And with that, we reach our first question. Most of the time, you have the
three options shown:
* Install: load OpenBSD onto the system, overwriting whatever may have been
there. Note that it is possible to leave some partitions untouched in this
process, such as a /home, but otherwise, assume everything else is
overwritten.
* Upgrade: Install a new set of install files on this machine, but do not
overwrite any configuration information, user data, or additional
programs. No disk formatting is done, nor are the /etc or /var directories
overwritten. A few important notes:
+ You will not be given the option of installing the etc34.tgz file.
After the install, you will have to manually merge the changes of
etc34.tgz into your system before you can expect it to be fully
functional. This is an important step which must be done, as otherwise
certain key services (such as pf(4)) may not start.
+ The Upgrade process is not designed to skip releases! While this will
often work, it is not supported. For OpenBSD 3.4, upgrading 3.3 to 3.4
is the only supported upgrade. If you have to upgrade from an older
version, a complete reinstall is recommended.
+ The i386 platform has switched to the ELF binary format, and will
require uninstalling all installed packages and ports before upgrade.
Reinstallation is highly recommended over upgrade.
* Shell: Sometimes, you need to perform repairs or maintenance to a system
which will not (or should not) boot to a normal kernel. This option will
allow you to do maintenance to the system.
On occasion, you will not see the "Upgrade" option listed. After a flag day
event, it is not possible to directly upgrade; one must rebuild the system
from scratch.
In this example, we will do an install, but the upgrade process is similar.
Welcome to the OpenBSD/i386 3.4 install program.
This program will help you install OpenBSD in a simple and rational way. At
any prompt except password prompts you can run a shell command by typing
'!foo', or escape to a shell by typing '!'. Default answers are shown in []'s
and are selected by pressing RETURN. At any time you can exit this program by
pressing Control-C and then RETURN, but quitting during an install can leave
your system in an inconsistent state.
Specify terminal type: [vt220]
Do you wish to select a keyboard encoding table? [n] ENTER
In most cases, the default terminal type is appropriate; however if you are
using a serial console for install, don't just take the default, respond
appropriately.
If you do not select a keyboard encoding table, a US keyboard layout will be
assumed.
IS YOUR DATA BACKED UP? As with anything that modifies disk contents, this
program can cause SIGNIFICANT data loss.
It is often helpful to have the installation notes handy. For complex disk
configurations, relevant disk hardware manuals and a calculator are useful.
Proceed with install? [n] y
If you take the default here, the install process will terminate and drop you
to a shell prompt.
4.5.2 - Setting up disks
Setting up disks in OpenBSD varies a bit between platforms. For i386 and
macppc, disk setup is done in two stages. First, the OpenBSD slice of the hard
disk is defined using fdisk(8), then that slice is subdivided into OpenBSD
partitions using disklabel(8).
Some users may be a little confused by the terminology used here. It will
appear we are using the word "partition" in two different ways. This
observation is correct. There are two layers of partitioning in several
OpenBSD platforms, the first, one could consider the Operating System
partitioning, which is how multiple OSs on one computer mark out their own
space on the disk, and the second one is how the OpenBSD partition is
sub-partitioned into individual filesystems. The first layer is visible as a
disk partition to DOS, Windows, and any other OS that can coexist with other
Operating Systems on the IBM AT descended machines. The second layer of
partitioning is visible only to OpenBSD and those OSs which can directly read
an OpenBSD filesystem.
Cool! Let's get to it...
You will now initialize the disk(s) that OpenBSD will use. To enable all
available security features you should configure the disk(s) to allow the
creation of separate filesystems for /, /tmp, /var, /usr, and /home.
Available disks are: wd0.
Which one is the root disk? (or done) [wd0] Enter
The root disk is the disk the system will boot from, and normally where swap
space resides. Usually, this will be the default -- if it isn't, you will need
to know how to force your computer to boot from a non-standard disk. IDE disks
will show up as wd0, wd1, etc., SCSI disks and RAID devices will show up as
sd0, sd1, and so on. All the disks OpenBSD can find are listed here -- if you
have drives which are not showing up, you have unsupported or improperly
configured hardware.
Do you want to use *all* of wd0 for OpenBSD? [no] Enter
If you say "yes" to this question, the entire disk will be allocated to
OpenBSD. This will result in a standard Master Boot Record and partition table
being written out to disk -- one partition, the size of the entire hard disk,
set to the OpenBSD partition type, and flagged as the bootable partition. This
will be a common choice for most production uses of OpenBSD; however, there
are some systems this should not be done on. Many Compaq systems, many
laptops, some Dell and other systems use a "maintenance" or "Suspend to Disk"
partition, which should be kept intact. If your system has any other
partitions of any type you do not wish to erase, do not select "yes" to the
above question.
For the sake of this example, we will assume the disk is to be split between
OpenBSD and a pre-existing Windows 2000 partition, so we take the default of
"no", which will take us into the fdisk(8) program. You can also get more
information on fdisk(8) here.
Important Note: Users with a large hard disk (larger than 8G on a newer i386,
though on older machines and different platforms, often much smaller) will
want to see this section before going any further.
You will now create a single MBR partition to contain your OpenBSD data. This
partition must have an id of 'A6'; must *NOT* overlap other partitions; and
must be marked as the only active partition.
The 'manual' command describes all the fdisk commands in detail.
Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*0: 06 0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] DOS > 32MB
1: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> help
help Command help list
manual Show entire OpenBSD man page for fdisk
reinit Re-initialize loaded MBR (to defaults)
setpid Set the identifier of a given table entry
disk Edit current drive stats
edit Edit given table entry
flag Flag given table entry as bootable
update Update machine code in loaded MBR
select Select extended partition table entry MBR
print Print loaded MBR partition table
write Write loaded MBR to disk
exit Exit edit of current MBR, without saving changes
quit Quit edit of current MBR, saving current changes
abort Abort program without saving current changes
fdisk: 1>
A few commands are worthy of elaboration:
* r or reinit: Clears existing partition table, makes one big OpenBSD
partition, flags it active, and installs the OpenBSD MBR code. Equivalent
to saying "yes" to the "use *all* of ..." question.
* u or update: Replaces the current MBR code (if any) with the OpenBSD MBR
loader. If your drive has never been used, this may be important.
* p or print: Displays the current partition table in sectors. "p m" will
show the partition table in megabytes, "p g" will show it in gigabytes.
* e or edit: edit or alter a table entry.
* f or flag: Marks a partition as the active partition, the one that will be
booted from
* exit and quit: Careful on these, as some users are used to "exit" and
"quit" having opposite meanings.
It is worth pointing out once again, a error here will result in significant
data loss. If you are going to do this on a drive with important data, it
might be worth practicing on a "disposable" drive, in addition to having a
good backup.
Our drive here has a 1.5G partition for Windows 2000 (using the FAT
filesystem). Looking at the info from the above display, we can see that the
Windows partition occupies through cylinder 202 on the drive. So, we are going
to allocate the rest of the disk to OpenBSD, starting at cylinder 203. You
could also calculate OpenBSD's starting sector of 3069360 by adding the
existing partition's starting sector (63) and its size (3069297).
You can edit the drive layout in either Cylinder/Heads/Sectors form or just
raw sectors. Which is easier depends upon what you are doing; in this case,
working around an existing partition, using CHS format will probably be
easier. If you are creating the first partition on the disk, just using raw
sectors may be easier.
fdisk: 1> e 1
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
Partition id ('0' to disable) [0 - FF]: [0] (? for help) a6
Do you wish to edit in CHS mode? [n] y
BIOS Starting cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] 203
BIOS Starting head [0 - 239]: [0] Enter
BIOS Starting sector [1 - 63]: [0] 1
BIOS Ending cylinder [0 - 2585]: [0] 2585
BIOS Ending head [0 - 239]: [0] 239
BIOS Ending sector [1 - 63]: [0] 63
fdisk:*1> p
Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*0: 06 0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] DOS > 32MB
1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 36030960 ] OpenBSD
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
fdisk:*1> p m
Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [19092 Megabytes]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*0: 06 0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 1499M] DOS > 32MB
1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 17593M] OpenBSD
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0M] unused
fdisk:*1>
It is important that the first partition skips the first track of the disk, in
this case, starting on sector 63. If an OpenBSD partition is created starting
at offset 0, this partition table will end up being overwritten by the OpenBSD
partition's Partition Boot Record. The system will probably still be bootable,
but it will be very difficult to maintain, and this configuration is not
recommended or supported.
Note that the prompt changed to include an asterisk ('*') to indicate you have
unsaved changes. As we can see from the output of p m we have not altered our
Windows partition, we have successfully allocated the rest of the drive for
OpenBSD, and the partitions do not overlap. We are in business. Almost.
What we haven't done is flagged the partition as active so the machine will
boot OpenBSD on the next reboot:
fdisk:*1> f 1
Partition 1 marked active.
fdisk:*1> p
Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0: 06 0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] DOS > 32MB
*1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 36030960 ] OpenBSD
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
fdisk:*1>
And now, we are ready to save our changes:
fdisk:*1> w
Writing MBR at offset 0.
wd0: no disk label
fdisk: 1> q
Creating a disklabel
The next step is to use disklabel(8) to slice up the OpenBSD partition. More
details on using disklabel(8) can be found in FAQ 14, disklabel.
Here is the partition information you chose:
Disk: wd0 geometry: 2586/240/63 [39100320 Sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*0: 06 0 1 1 - 202 239 63 [ 63: 3069297 ] DOS > 32MB
1: A6 203 0 1 - 2585 239 63 [ 3069360: 36030960 ] OpenBSD
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
You will now create an OpenBSD disklabel inside the OpenBSD MBR
partition. The disklabel defines how OpenBSD splits up the MBR partition
into OpenBSD partitions in which filesystems and swap space are created.
The offsets used in the disklabel are ABSOLUTE, i.e. relative to the
start of the disk, NOT the start of the OpenBSD MBR partition.
disklabel: no disk label
WARNING: Disk wd0 has no label. You will be creating a new one.
# using MBR partition 1: type A6 off 3069360 (0x2ed5b0) size 36030960 (0x225c9f0)
Treating sectors 3069360-39100320 as the OpenBSD portion of the disk.
You can use the 'b' command to change this.
Initial label editor (enter '?' for help at any prompt)
> ?
Available commands:
p [unit] - print label.
M - show entire OpenBSD man page for disklabel.
e - edit drive parameters.
a [part] - add new partition.
b - set OpenBSD disk boundaries.
c [part] - change partition size.
d [part] - delete partition.
D - set label to default.
g [d|b] - Use [d]isk or [b]ios geometry.
m [part] - modify existing partition.
n [part] - set the mount point for a partition.
r - recalculate free space.
u - undo last change.
s [path] - save label to file.
w - write label to disk.
q - quit and save changes.
x - exit without saving changes.
X - toggle expert mode.
z - zero out partition table.
? [cmnd] - this message or command specific help.
Numeric parameters may use suffixes to indicate units:
'b' for bytes, 'c' for cylinders, 'k' for kilobytes, 'm' for megabytes,
'g' for gigabytes or no suffix for sectors (usually 512 bytes).
Non-sector units will be rounded to the nearest cylinder.
Entering '?' at most prompts will give you (simple) context sensitive help.
>
Again, a few of these commands could use a little elaboration:
* p - displays (prints) the current disklabel to the screen, and you can use
the modifiers k, m or g for kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes.
* D - Clears any existing disklabel, creates a new default disklabel which
covers just the current OpenBSD partition. This can be useful if the disk
previously had a disklabel on it, and the OpenBSD partition was recreated
to a different size -- the old disk label may not get deleted, and may
cause confusion.
* m - Modifies an existing entry in a disklabel. Do not over estimate what
this will do for you. While it may alter the size of a disklabel
partition, it will NOT alter the filesystem on the drive. Using this
option and expecting it to resize existing partitions is a good way of
losing large amounts of data.
Slicing up your disk properly is important. The answer to the question, "How
should I partition my system?" is "Exactly how you need it". This will vary
from application to application. There is no universal answer. If you are
unsure of how you want to partition your system, see this discussion.
In this system, we have over 17G available for OpenBSD. That's a lot of space,
and it isn't likely we will need most of it. So, we will deliberately not use
absolute minimum sizes. We would rather have a few hundred megabytes of unused
space than a kilobyte too little.
On the root disk, the two partitions 'a' and 'b' must be created. The
installation process will not proceed until these two partitions are
available. 'a' will be used for the root filesystem (/) and 'b' will be used
as swap space.
After a little thought, we decide to create just enough partitions to allow
the creation of the recommended separate filesystems (/, /tmp, /var, /usr, /
home) along with a swap partition:
* wd0a: / (root) - 150M. Should be more than enough.
* wd0b: (swap) - 300M.
* wd0d: /tmp - 120M. /tmp is used for building some software, 120M will
probably be enough for most things.
* wd0e: /var - 80M. If this were to be a web or mail server, we'd have made
this partition much larger, but, that's not what we are doing.
* wd0g: /usr - 2G. We want this partition to be large enough to load quite a
few user applications, plus be able to update and rebuild the system if
desired or needed. The Ports tree will be here as well, which will take
almost 100M of this space before ports are built.
* wd0h: /home - 4G. This will allow plenty of user file space.
Now, if you add those up, you will see over 10G of space is unused! Unused
space won't hurt anything, and it gives us flexibility to enlarge things in
the future if need be. Need more /tmp? No problem, create a new one in the
unused space, change /etc/fstab and problem solved.
> p m
device: /dev/rwd0c
type: ESDI
disk: ESDI/IDE disk
label: ST320011A
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 16383
total sectors: 39102336
free sectors: 36030960
rpm: 3600
16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg]
a: 17593.2M 1498.7M unused 0 0
c: 19092.9M 0.0M unused 0 0
i: 1498.7M 0.0M MSDOS
> d a
> a a
offset: [3069360] Enter
size: [36030960] 150M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 307440
FS type: [4.2BSD] Enter
mount point: [none] /
> a b
offset: [3376800] Enter
size: [35723520] 300M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 614880
FS type: [swap] Enter
> a d
offset: [3991680] Enter
size: [35108640] 120m
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 245952
FS type: [4.2BSD] Enter
mount point: [none] /tmp
> a e
offset: [4237632] Enter
size: [34862688] 80m
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 164304
FS type: [4.2BSD] Enter
mount point: [none] /var
> a g
offset: [4401936] Enter
size: [34698384] 2g
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 4194288
FS type: [4.2BSD] Enter
mount point: [none] /usr
> a h
offset: [8596224] Enter
size: [30504096] 4g
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 8388576
FS type: [4.2BSD] Enter
mount point: [none] /home
> p m
device: /dev/rwd0c
type: ESDI
disk: ESDI/IDE disk
label: ST320011A
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 16383
total sectors: 39102336
free sectors: 22115520
rpm: 3600
16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg]
a: 150.1M 1498.7M 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # /
b: 300.2M 1648.8M swap
c: 19092.9M 0.0M unused 0 0
d: 120.1M 1949.1M 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # /tmp
e: 80.2M 2069.2M 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # /var
g: 2048.0M 2149.4M 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # /usr
h: 4096.0M 4197.4M 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # /home
i: 1498.7M 0.0M MSDOS
> q
Write new label?: [y] Enter
You will note there is a c partition we seem to have ignored. This partition
is your entire hard disk; don't attempt to alter it. You will also note the i
partition wasn't defined by us; this is the pre-existing Windows 2000
partition. Partitions are not assigned any particular letters -- with the
exception of a (root), b (swap) and c (entire disk), the rest of the
partitions (through letter p) are available for use as you desire.
If you look closely at the output of the disklabel, you will note that your
drive RPM rating is probably wrong. This is historical; the drive speed is not
used in any way by the system. Do not worry about it.
Configuring your mount points and formatting your filesystems
Now comes the final configuration of your mount points. If you configured the
mount points through disklabel(8), this step consists of just verifying your
selections; otherwise, you can specify them now.
The root filesystem will be mounted on wd0a.
wd0b will be used for swap space.
Mount point for wd0d (size=122976k), none or done? [/tmp] Enter
Mount point for wd0e (size=82152k), none or done? [/var] Enter
Mount point for wd0g (size=2097144k), none or done? [/usr] Enter
Mount point for wd0h (size=4194288k), none or done? [/home] Enter
Mount point for wd0d (size=122976k), none or done? [/tmp] done
Done - no available disks found.
You have configured the following partitions and mount points:
wd0a /
wd0d /tmp
wd0e /var
wd0g /usr
wd0h /home
The next step creates a filesystem on each partition, ERASING existing data.
Are you really sure that you're ready to proceed? [n] y
/dev/rwd0a: 307440 sectors in 305 cylinders of 16 tracks, 63 sectors
150.1MB in 20 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.88MB/g, 1920 i/g)
/dev/rwd0d: 245952 sectors in 244 cylinders of 16 tracks, 63 sectors
120.1MB in 16 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.88MB/g, 1920 i/g)
/dev/rwd0e: 164304 sectors in 163 cylinders of 16 tracks, 63 sectors
80.2MB in 11 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.88MB/g, 1920 i/g)
/dev/rwd0g: 4194288 sectors in 4161 cylinders of 16 tracks, 63 sectors
2048.0MB in 261 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.88MB/g, 1920 i/g)
/dev/rwd0h: 8388576 sectors in 8322 cylinders of 16 tracks, 63 sectors
4096.0MB in 521 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.88MB/g, 1920 i/g)
/dev/wd0a on /mnt type ffs (rw, asynchronous, local, ctime=Thu Oct 10 21:
50:36 2 002)
/dev/wd0h on /mnt/home type ffs (rw, asynchronous, local, nodev, nosuid,
ctime=Thu Oct 10 21:50:36 2002)
/dev/wd0d on /mnt/tmp type ffs (rw, asynchronous, local, nodev, nosuid,
ctime=Thu Oct 10 21:50:36 2002)
/dev/wd0g on /mnt/usr type ffs (rw, asynchronous, local, nodev, ctime=Th
u Oct 10 21:50:36 2002)
/dev/wd0e on /mnt/var type ffs (rw, asynchronous, local, nodev, nosuid,
ctime=Th u Oct 10 21:50:36 2002)
You may wonder why the installer again asks for mount points. This allows you
to recover from any errors or omissions in the mount points specified during
the creation of the disklabel. For instance, the installation process will
automatically delete any duplicate mount points you enter during the
configuration of the disklabel. The disklabel program will allow you to enter
such duplicates, and thus they must be checked for after the disklabel program
exits. The deleted duplicate mount points will result in partitions without
mount points, that you must assign new mount points for if you wish to use the
space.
Notice the "Are you really sure that you are ready to proceed?" question
defaults to no, so you will have to deliberately tell it to proceed and format
your partitions. If you chose no, you would simply be dropped into a shell and
could start the install again by typing install, or just by rebooting again
with your boot disk.
At this point all filesystems will formatted for you. This could take some
time depending on the size of the partitions and the speed of the disk.
4.5.3 - Setting the system hostname
Now you must set the system hostname. This value, along with the DNS domain
name (specified below), will be saved in the file /etc/myname, which is used
during normal boot to set the hostname of the system. If you do not set the
domain name of the system, the default value of 'my.domain' will be used.
It is important to set this name now, because it will be used when the
cryptographic keys for the system are generated during the first boot after
installation. This generation takes place whether the network is configured or
not.
Enter system hostname (short form, e.g. 'foo'): puffy
4.5.4 - Configuring the network
Now it is time to configure your network. The network must be configured if
you are planning on doing a ftp or nfs based install, considering it will be
based upon the information you are about to enter. Here is a walk through of
the network configuration section of the install process.
Configure the network? [y] Enter
Available interfaces are: fxp0.
Which one do you wish to initialize? (or 'done') [fxp0] Enter
Symbolic (host) name for fxp0? [puffy] Enter
The default media for fxp0 is
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex)
Do you want to change the default media? [n] Enter
IP address for fxp0? (or 'dhcp') 199.185.137.55
Netmask? [255.255.255.0] Enter
Done - no available interfaces found.
DNS domain name? (e.g. 'bar.com') [my.domain] example.com
DNS nameserver? (IP address or 'none') [none] 199.185.137.1
Use the nameserver now? [y] Enter
Default route? (IP address, 'dhcp' or 'none') 199.185.137.128
add net default: gateway 199.185.137.128
Edit hosts with ed? [n] Enter
Do you want to do any manual network configuration? [n] Enter
In the above example, we use a static IP address. As indicated, you can use
"dhcp" instead on most platforms (not Alpha), assuming your environment
supports it. In the case of DHCP, most of the information will be grabbed from
the remote DHCP server; you will be given a chance to confirm it. Here is a
sample of the network configuration part of the install, this time done with
DHCP:
Configure the network? [y] Enter
Available interfaces are: fxp0.
Which one do you wish to initialize? (or 'done') [fxp0] Enter
Symbolic (host) name for fxp0? [puffy] Enter
The default media for fxp0 is
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex)
Do you want to change the default media? [n] Enter
IP address for fxp0? (or 'dhcp') dhcp
Issuing hostname-associated DHCP request for fxp0.
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5-OpenBSD
Listening on BPF/fxp0/00:08:c7:77:b4:6b
Sending on BPF/fxp0/00:08:c7:77:b4:6b
Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPDISCOVER on fxp0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 1
DHCPOFFER from 199.185.137.128
DHCPREQUEST on fxp0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 199.185.137.128
New Network Number: 199.185.137.0
New Broadcast Address: 199.185.137.255
bound to 199.185.137.55 -- renewal in 43200 seconds.
Done - no available interfaces found.
DNS domain name? (e.g. 'bar.com') [example.org] Enter
DNS nameserver? (IP address or 'none') [199.185.137.1] Enter
Use the nameserver now? [y] Enter
Default route? (IP address, 'dhcp' or 'none') [199.185.137.128] Enter
add net default: gateway 199.185.137.128
Edit hosts with ed? [n] Enter
Do you want to do any manual network configuration? [n] Enter
NOTE: Only one interface can easily be configured using DHCP during an
install. If you attempt to configure more than one interface using DHCP you
will encounter errors. You have to manually configure the additional
interfaces after the installation.
Now, we set the password for the root account:
Password for root account? (will not echo) pAssWOrd
Password for root account? (again) pAssWOrd
Use a secure password for the root account. You will create other user
accounts after the system is booted. From passwd(1):
The new password should be at least six characters long and not purely
alphabetic. Its total length must be less than _PASSWORD_LEN (currently
128 characters). A mixture of both lower and uppercase letters, numbers,
and meta-characters is encouraged.
4.5.5 - Choosing installation media
After your network is set up, the install script will give you a chance to
make manual adjustments to the configuration. Then the filesystems you created
will be mounted and a root password set. This will get your local disks ready
for the OpenBSD packages to be installed upon them.
Next, you will get a chance to choose your installation media. The options are
listed below.
You will now specify the location and names of the install sets you want to
load. You will be able to repeat this step until all of your sets have been
successfully loaded. If you are not sure what sets to install, refer to the
installation notes for details on the contents of each.
Sets can be located on a (m)ounted filesystem; a (c)drom, (d)isk or (t)ape
device; or a (f)tp, (n)fs or (h)ttp server.
Where are the install sets? c
Available CD-ROMs are: cd0.
In this example we are installing from CD-ROM. This will bring up a list of
devices on your computer identified as a CD-ROM. Most people will only have
one. If you need to, make sure you pick the device which you will use to
install OpenBSD from.
NOTE: All possible sources for install sets are listed, but not all may be
available on your system. e.g. (n)fs is shown but not all architectures allow
NFS installations. If you choose a source that is not available, you will get
an error message and be given the chance to choose another source for your
installation sets.
Available CD-ROMs are: cd0.
Which one contains the install media? (or 'done') [cd0] Enter
Pathname to the sets? (or 'done') [3.4/i386] Enter
Here, you are prompted for which directory the installation files are, which
is 3.4/i386/ on the official CD-ROM.
4.5.6 - Choosing filesets.
Now it's time to choose which packages you will be installing. You can get a
description of these files in the next section. The files that the install
program finds will be shown to you on the screen. Your job is just to specify
which files you want. By default all the non-X packages are selected; however,
some people may wish to limit this to the bare minimum required to run
OpenBSD, which would be base34.tgz, etc34.tgz and bsd. Others will wish to
install all packages. The example below is that of a full install.
The following sets are available. Enter a filename, 'all' to select
all the sets, or 'done'. You may de-select a set by prepending a '-'
to its name.
[X] bsd
[ ] bsd.rd
[X] base34.tgz
[X] etc34.tgz
[X] misc34.tgz
[X] comp34.tgz
[X] man34.tgz
[X] game34.tgz
[ ] xbase34.tgz
[ ] xshare34.tgz
[ ] xfont34.tgz
[ ] xserv34.tgz
File Name? (or 'done') [bsd.rd] all
The following sets are available. Enter a filename, 'all' to select
all the sets, or 'done'. You may de-select a set by prepending a '-'
to its name.
[X] bsd
[X] bsd.rd
[X] base34.tgz
[X] etc34.tgz
[X] misc34.tgz
[X] comp34.tgz
[X] man34.tgz
[X] game34.tgz
[X] xbase34.tgz
[X] xshare34.tgz
[X] xfont34.tgz
[X] xserv34.tgz
You can do all kinds of nifty things here -- -x* would remove all X
components, if you changed your mind. In this case, we are going to load all
the sets. While the system will run with fewer sets, either the starting
default or installing all sets is recommended. More details on selecting sets
here.
Once you have successfully picked which packages you want, you will be
prompted to make sure you want to extract these packages and they will then be
installed. A progress bar will be shown that will keep you informed on how
much time it will take. The times range greatly depending on what system it is
you are installing OpenBSD on, the packages installed, and the speed of the
source media. This part may from a few minutes to several hours.
File Name? (or 'done') [done] Enter
Ready to install sets? [y] Enter
Getting bsd ...
100% |**************************************************| 4735 KB 00:03
Getting bsd.rd ...
100% |**************************************************| 4275 KB 00:02
Getting base34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 30267 KB 00:21
Getting etc34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 1545 KB 00:01
Getting misc34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 1909 KB 00:01
Getting comp34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 17074 KB 00:13
Getting man34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 6139 KB 00:04
Getting game34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 2534 KB 00:01
Getting xbase34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 10940 KB 00:06
Getting xshare34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 1656 KB 00:02
Getting xfont34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 31160 KB 00:21
Getting xserv34.tgz ...
100% |**************************************************| 15228 KB 00:11
Sets can be located on a (m)ounted filesystem; a (c)drom, (d)isk or (t)ape
device; or a (f)tp, (n)fs or (h)ttp server.
Where are the install sets? (or 'done')
At this point, you can pull additional files from other sources (including
custom file sets) if desired, or hit 'done' if you have installed all the file
sets you need.
4.5.7 - Finishing up
You will now be asked if you plan to run X on this system. If you answer 'Y',
/etc/sysctl.conf will be modified to include the line machdep.allowaperture=1
or machdep.allowaperture=2, depending on your platform.
Do you expect to run the X Window System? [y] y
Your last task is to enter the time zone. Depending on where your machine
lives, there are may be several equally valid answers for the question. In the
example that follows, we used US/Eastern, but could also have used EST5EDT or
US/Michigan and had the same result. Hitting ? at the prompts will guide you
through your choices.
Saving configuration files......done.
Generating initial host.random file ......done.
What timezone are you in? ('?' for list) [US/Pacific] ?
Africa/ Chile/ GB-Eire Israel NZ-CHAT Turkey
America/ Cuba GMT Jamaica Navajo UCT
Antarctica/ EET GMT+0 Japan PRC US/
Arctic/ EST GMT-0 Kwajalein PST8PDT UTC
Asia/ EST5EDT GMT0 Libya Pacific/ Universal
Atlantic/ Egypt Greenwich MET Poland W-SU
Australia/ Eire HST MST Portugal WET
Brazil/ Etc/ Hongkong MST7MDT ROC Zulu
CET Europe/ Iceland Mexico/ ROK posix/
CST6CDT Factory Indian/ Mideast/ Singapore posixrules
Canada/ GB Iran NZ SystemV/ right/
What timezone are you in? ('?' for list) [US/Pacific] US
What sub-timezone of 'US' are you in? ('?' for list) ?
Alaska Central Hawaii Mountain Samoa
Aleutian East-Indiana Indiana-Starke Pacific
Arizona Eastern Michigan Pacific-New
Select a sub-timezone of 'US' ('?' for list): Eastern
Setting local timezone to 'US/Eastern'...done.
If you are concerned about very precise time, you may wish to read this.
The last steps are for the system to create the /dev directory (which may take
a while on some systems, especially if you have a small amount of RAM), and
install the boot blocks.
Making all device nodes...done.
Installing boot block...
boot: /mnt/boot
proto: /usr/mdec/biosboot
device: /dev/rwd0c
/usr/mdec/biosboot: entry point 0
proto bootblock size 512
room for 12 filesystem blocks at 0x16f
Will load 7 blocks of size 8192 each.
Using disk geometry of 63 sectors and 240 heads.
0: 9 @(203 150 55) (3078864-3078872)
1: 63 @(203 151 1) (3078873-3078935)
2: 24 @(203 152 1) (3078936-3078959)
3: 16 @(203 8 47) (3069910-3069925)
/mnt/boot: 4 entries total
using MBR partition 1: type 166 (0xa6) offset 3069360 (0x2ed5b0)
...done.
CONGRATULATIONS! Your OpenBSD install has been successfully completed!
To boot the new system, enter halt at the command prompt. Once the
system has halted, reset the machine and boot from the disk.
# halt
syncing disks... done
The operating system has halted.
Please press any key to reboot.
OpenBSD is now installed on your system and ready for its first boot, but
before you do...
Before you reboot
At this point, your system is installed and ready to be rebooted and
configured for service. Before doing this, however, it would be wise to check
out the Errata page to see if there are any bugs that would immediately impact
you.
After you reboot
One of your first things to read after you install your system is afterboot
(8).
You may also find the following links useful:
* Adding users in OpenBSD
* Initial Network Setup
* Man Pages of popular/useful commands
* OpenBSD man pages on the Web
* The OpenBSD Ports and Packages system for installing software, as well as
here and here
One last thing...
The OpenBSD developers ask you to Send in a copy of your dmesg. This is really
appreciated by the developers, and ultimately, all users.
4.6 - What files are needed for installation?
The complete OpenBSD installation is broken up into a number of separate file
sets. Not every application requires every file set. Here is an overview of
each:
* bsd - This is the Kernel. Required
* bsd.rd - RAM disk kernel
* base34.tgz - Contains the base OpenBSD system Required
* etc34.tgz - Contains all the files in /etc Required
* comp34.tgz - Contains the compiler and its tools, libs. Recommended
* man34.tgz - Contains man pages Recommended
* misc34.tgz - Contains misc info, setup documentation
* game34.tgz - Contains the games for OpenBSD
* xbase34.tgz - Contains the base install for X11
* xfont34.tgz - Contains X11's font server and fonts
* xserv34.tgz - Contains X11's X servers
* xshare34.tgz - Contains manpages, locale settings, includes, etc for X
4.7 - How much space do I need for an OpenBSD installation?
The following are minimum suggested filesystem sizes for a full system
install. The numbers include enough extra space to permit you to run a typical
home system that is connected to the Internet.
* These are minimum values.
* If you plan to install a significant amount of third party software, make
your /usr partition large! At least triple these values!
* For a system that handles lots of email or web pages (stored,
respectively, in /var/mail and /var/www) you will want to make your /var
partition significantly larger, or put them on separate partitions.
* For a multiuser system which may generate lots of logs, you will still
want to make your /var partition significantly larger (/var/log).
* If you plan to rebuild the kernel or system from source, you will want to
make the /usr partition significantly larger, at least 800M-1G larger than
indicated below.
As you read this, keep in mind that /usr and /usr/X11R6 are usually both parts
of the same filesystem, that is, /usr, as there is no big advantage to making
them into separate filesystems.
SYSTEM / /usr /var /usr/X11R6
alpha 80M 250M 25M 140M
hp300 80M 250M 25M 140M
hppa 100M 200M 25M 120M
i386 60M 250M 25M 140M
mac68k 80M 250M 25M 100M
macppc 80M 250M 25M 140M
mvme68k 80M 250M 25M 100M
sparc 80M 250M 25M 120M
sparc64 80M 250M 25M 100M
vax 100M 200M 25M 120M
In addition, it is recommended that a /tmp partition be used. The /tmp
partition is used in the compiling of ports, among other things, so how big
you make it depends on what you do with it. 50M may be plenty for most people,
but some large applications may require 100M or more of /tmp space.
When you are in the disklabel editor, you may choose to make your entire
system have just an 'a' (main filesystem) and 'b' (swap) . The 'a' filesystem
which you set up in disklabel will become your root partition, which should be
the sum of all the 3 main values above (/, /usr, and /var) plus some space for
/tmp. The 'b' partition you set up automatically becomes your system swap
partition -- we recommend a minimum of 32MB but if you have disk to spare make
it at least 64MB. If you have lots of disk space to spare, make this 256MB, or
even 512MB.
Swap space is used to store system core dumps on in the event of a crash(8).
If this is a consideration for you, your swap space should be slightly larger
than the amount of main memory you are likely to ever have in the system. Note
that upon reboot, savecore(8) will attempt to save the contents of the swap
partition to a file in /var/crash so again, if this is a priority for you,
your /var partition must have enough free space to hold these dump files.
There are five main reasons for using separate filesystems, instead of shoving
everything into one or two filesystems:
* Security: You can mark some filesystems as 'nosuid', 'nodev', 'noexec',
'readonly', etc. This is now done by the install process, in fact, if you
use the above described partitions.
* Stability: A user, or a misbehaved program, can fill a filesystem with
garbage if they have write permissions for it. Your critical programs,
which of course run on a different filesystem, do not get interrupted.
* Speed: A filesystem which gets written to frequently may get somewhat
fragmented. (Luckily, the ffs filesystem, what OpenBSD uses, is not prone
to heavy fragmentation.)
* Integrity: If one filesystem is corrupted for some reason then your other
filesystems are still OK.
* Size: Many platforms have limits on the area of a disk where the boot ROM
can load the kernel from. In some cases, this limit may be very small
(504M for an older 486), in other cases, a much larger limit (8G on new
i386 systems). As the kernel can end up anywhere in the root partition,
the entire root partition should be within this area. For more details,
see this section. A good guideline might be to keep your / partition
completely below 2G, unless you know your platform (and particular
machine!) can handle more (or less!) than that.
Some additional thoughts on partitioning:
* For your first attempt at an experimentation system, one big / partition
and swap may be easiest until you know how much space you need. By doing
this you will be sacrificing some of the default security features of
OpenBSD that require separate filesystems for /, /tmp, /var, /usr and /
home.
* A system exposed to the Internet or other hostile forces should have a
separate /var (and maybe even a separate /var/log) for logging.
* A /home partition can be nice. New version of the OS? Wipe and reload
everything else, leave your /home partition untouched. Remember to save a
copy of your configuration files, though!
* A separate partition for anything which may accumulate a large quantity of
files that may need to be deleted can be faster to reformat and recreate
than to delete. See the upgrade-minifaq for an example (/usr/obj).
* If you wish to rebuild your system from source for any reason, the source
will be in /usr/src. If you don't make a separate partition for /usr/src,
make sure /usr has sufficient space.
* A commonly forgotten fact: you do not have to allocate all space on a
drive when you set the system up! Since you will now find it a challenge
to buy a new drive smaller than 20G, it can make sense to leave a chunk of
your drive unallocated. If you outgrow a partition, you can allocate a new
partition from your unused space, duplicate your existing partition to the
new partition, change /etc/fstab to point to the new partition, remount,
you now have more space.
* If you make your partitions too close to the minimum size required, you
will probably regret it later, when it is time to upgrade your system.
* If you permit users to write to /var/www (i.e., personal web pages), you
might wish to put it on a separate partition, so you can use quotas to
restrict the space they use, and if they fill the partition, no other
parts of your system will be impacted.
4.8 - Multibooting OpenBSD/i386
Multibooting is having several operating systems on one computer, and some
means of selecting the which OS is to boot. It is not a trivial task! If you
don't understand what you are doing, you may end up deleting large amounts of
data from your computer. New OpenBSD users are highly encouraged to start with
a blank hard drive on a dedicated machine, and then practice your desired
configuration on a non-production system before attempting a multiboot
configuration on a production machine. FAQ 14 has more information about the
OpenBSD boot process.
When multibooting, the requirements of all operating systems must be met by
your configuration. People often ask if there is a way around the 8G boot
limit of OpenBSD. While there are some programs that claim to get around
various limits of various operating systems, none of them are known to do this
with current versions of OpenBSD.
Here are several options to multibooting:
Setting active partitions
This is probably the most overlooked, and yet, sometimes the best solution for
multibooting. Simply set the active partition in whatever OS you are currently
using to be the one you want to boot by default when you next boot. Virtually
every OS offers a program to do this; OpenBSD's is fdisk(8), similar named
programs are in Windows 9x and DOS, and many other operating systems. This can
be highly desirable for OSs or systems which take a long time to shut down and
reboot -- you can set it and start the reboot process, then walk away, grab a
cup of coffee, and come back to the system booted the way you want it -- no
waiting for the Magic Moment to select the next OS.
Boot floppy
If you have a system that is used to boot OpenBSD infrequently (or don't wish
other users of the computer to note anything has changed), consider using a
boot floppy. Simply use one of the standard OpenBSD install floppies, and
create a /etc/boot.conf file (yes, you will also have to create an /etc
directory on the floppy) with the contents:
boot hd0a:/bsd
to cause the system to boot from hard drive 0, OpenBSD partition 'a', kernel
file /bsd. Note you can also boot from other drives with a line like: "boot
hd2a:/bsd" to boot off the third hard drive on your system. To boot from
OpenBSD, slip your floppy in, reboot. To boot from the other OS, eject the
floppy, reboot.
In this case, the boot(8) program is loaded from the floppy, looks for and
reads /etc/boot.conf. The "boot hd0a:/bsd" line instructs boot(8) where to
load the kernel from -- in this case, the first HD the BIOS sees. Keep in
mind, only a small file (/boot) is loaded from the floppy -- the system loads
the entire kernel off the hard disk, so this only adds about five seconds to
the boot process.
Windows NT/2000/XP NTLDR
To multiboot OpenBSD and Windows NT/2000/XP, you can use NTLDR, the boot
loader that NT uses. To multi-boot with NT, you need a copy of your OpenBSD
Partition Boot Record (PBR). After running installboot, you can copy it to a
file using dd(1):
# dd if=/dev/rsd0a of=openbsd.pbr bs=512 count=1
Now boot NT and put openbsd.pbr in C:. Add a line like this to the end of C:\
BOOT.INI:
c:\openbsd.pbr="OpenBSD"
When you reboot, you should be able to select OpenBSD from the NT loader menu.
There is much more information available about NTLDR at the NTLDR Hacking
Guide.
On Windows XP you can also edit the boot information using the GUI; see the XP
Boot.ini HOWTO.
Programs that do much of this for you are available, for example, BootPart.
This program can be run from Windows NT/2000/XP, and will fetch the OpenBSD
PBR, place it on your NT/2000/XP partition, and will add it to C:\BOOT.INI
The OpenBSD install and upgrade process will re-install the OpenBSD boot
loader, which has its location coded in the PBR, so if you re-install or
update your OpenBSD installation, you need to repeat the above process to
fetch a new copy of the OpenBSD PBR.
Note: The Windows NT boot loader is only capable of booting OSs from the
primary hard drive. You can not use it to load OpenBSD from the second drive
on a system.
Other boot loaders
Some other bootloaders OpenBSD users have used successfully include GAG, OSBS,
The Ranish Partition Manager and GRUB.
OpenBSD and Linux (i386)
Please refer to INSTALL.linux, which gives in depth instructions on getting
OpenBSD working with Linux.
4.9 - Sending your dmesg to dmesg@openbsd.org after the install
Just to remind people, it's important for the OpenBSD developers to keep track
of what hardware works, and what hardware doesn't work perfectly.
A quote from /usr/src/etc/root/root.mail
If you wish to ensure that OpenBSD runs better on your machines, please do us
a favor (after you have your mail system configured!) and type something like:
# dmesg | mail -s "Sony VAIO 505R laptop, apm works OK" dmesg@openbsd.org
so that we can see what kinds of configurations people are running. As shown,
including a bit of information about your machine in the subject or the body
can help us even further. We will use this information to improve device driver
support in future releases. (Please do this using the supplied GENERIC kernel,
not for a custom compiled kernel, unless you're unable to boot the GENERIC
kernel). The device driver information we get from this helps us fix existing
drivers. Thank you!
Make sure you send email from an account that is able to also receive email so
developers can contact you if they have something they want you to test or
change in order to get your setup working. It's not important at all to send
the email from the same machine that is running OpenBSD, so if that machine is
unable to receive email, just
$ dmesg | mail your-account@yourmail.dom
and then forward that message to
dmesg@openbsd.org
where your-account@yourmail.dom is your regular email account. (or transfer
the dmesg output using ftp/scp/floppydisk/carrier-pigeon/...)
NOTE - Please send only GENERIC kernel dmesgs. Custom kernels that have device
drivers removed are not helpful.
4.10 - Adding a file set after install
"Oh no! I forgot to add a file set when I did the install!"
Sometimes, you realize you really DID need comp34.tgz (or any other system
component) after all, but you didn't realize this at the time you installed
your system. Good news: There are two easy ways to add file sets after the
initial install:
Using the upgrade process
Simply boot your install media (CD-ROM or Floppy), and choose Upgrade (rather
than Install). When you get to the lists of file sets to install, choose the
sets you neglected to install first time around, select your source, and let
it install them for you.
Using tar(1)
The install file sets are simply compressed tar files, and you can expand them
manually from the root of the filesystem:
# cd /
# tar xzvpf comp34.tgz
Do NOT forget the 'p' option in the above command in order to restore the file
permissions properly!
One common mistake is to think you can use pkg_add(1) to add a missing file
sets. This does not work. pkg_add(1) is for package files, not generic tar
files like the install sets.
4.11 - What is 'bsd.rd'?
bsd.rd is a "RAM Disk" kernel. This file can be very useful; many developers
are careful to keep it on the root of their system at all times.
Calling it a "RAM Disk kernel" describes the root filesystem of the kernel --
rather than being a physical drive, the utilities available after the boot of
bsd.rd are stored in the kernel, and are run from a RAM-based filesystem.
bsd.rd also includes a healthy set of utilities to allow you to do system
maintenance and installation.
On some platforms, bsd.rd is actually the preferred installation technique --
you place this kernel on an existing filesystem, boot it, and run the install
from it. On most platforms, if you have a running older version of OpenBSD,
you can FTP a new version of bsd.rd, reboot from it, and install a new version
of OpenBSD without using any removable media at all.
Here is an example of booting bsd.rd on an i386 system:
Using Drive: 0 Partition: 3
reading boot.....
probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm mem[639k 255M a20=on]
disk: fd0 hd0+
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.02
boot> boot hd0a:/bsd.rd
. . . normal boot to install . . .
As indicated, you will be brought to the install program, but you can also
drop to the shell to do maintenance on your system.
The general rule on booting bsd.rd is to change your boot kernel from /bsd to
bsd.rd through whatever means used on your platform.
4.12 - Common installation problems
4.12.1 - My Compaq only recognizes 16M RAM
Some Compaq systems have an issue where the full system RAM is not detected by
the OpenBSD second stage boot loader properly, and only 16M may be detected
and used by OpenBSD. This can be corrected either by creating/editing /etc/
boot.conf file, or by entering commands at the "boot>" prompt before OpenBSD
loads. If you had a machine with 64M RAM, but OpenBSD was only detecting the
first 16M, the command you would use would be:
machine mem +0x3000000@0x1000000
to add 48M (0x3000000) after the first 16M (0x1000000). Typically, if you had
a machine with this problem, you would enter the above command first at the
install floppy/CD-ROM's boot> prompt, load the system, reboot, and create a /
etc/boot.conf file with the above line in it so all future bootings will
recognize all available RAM.
It has also been reported that a ROM update will fix this on some systems.
4.12.2 - My i386 won't boot after install
Your install seemed to go fine, but on first boot, you see no sign of OpenBSD
attempting to boot. There are a few common reasons for this problem:
* No partition was flagged active in fdisk(8). To fix this, reboot the
machine using the boot floppy or media, and "flag" a partition as "active"
(bootable). See here and here
* No valid boot loader was ever put on the disk. If you answer "Y" to the
"Use entire disk for OpenBSD?" question during the install, or use the
"reinit" or "update" options of fdisk(8), the OpenBSD boot record is
installed on the Master Boot Record of the disk; otherwise, the existing
master boot code is untouched. This will be a problem if no other boot
record existed. The solution is to boot the install media again, drop to
the shell and invoke fdisk(8) and use the "update" option.
* In some rare occasions, something may go wrong with the second stage boot
loader install. Reinstalling the second stage boot loader is discussed
here.
* You mixed a.out and ELF boot disk and install files. OpenBSD/i386 has
transitioned from the older a.out format to the ELF format for binaries
shortly after 3.3-release. The OpenBSD 3.4 boot loader can not boot an
OpenBSD 3.3-release's kernel, nor can the 3.3-release boot loader boot an
OpenBSD 3.4 kernel. You must use a boot disk that matches the version of
OpenBSD you intend to install. Failure to follow this will show itself
with a message such as "failure(79)" and/or "Inappropriate file type or
format".
* You ignored all the warnings and explanations about the 8G boot limit.
This results in a hang at the very start of the boot process, sometimes
with the message, "Bad magic".
4.12.3 - My (older, slower) machine booted, but hung at the ssh-keygen steps
It is very likely your machine is running fine, just taking a while to do the
ssh key generation process. A SparcStation2 or a Macintosh Quadra may take 45
minutes or more to complete the three ssh-keygen(1) steps, some machines will
take even longer. Just let it finish; it is only done once per install.
4.12.4 - I got the message "Failed to change directory" when doing an install
When doing an FTP install of a snapshot during the -beta stage of the OpenBSD
development cycle, you may see this:
Do you want to see a list of potential FTP servers? [y] ENTER
Getting the list from 192.128.5.191 (ftp.openbsd.org)... FAILED
Failed to change directory.
Server IP address or hostname?
This is normal and expected behavior during this pre-release part of the
cycle. The install program looks for the FTP list on the primary FTP server in
a directory that won't be available until the release date, so you get the
above message.
Simply use the FTP mirror list to find your favorite FTP mirror, and manually
enter its name when prompted.
Note: You should not see this if you are installing -release or from CD-ROM.
4.12.5 - When I login, I get "login_krb4-or-pwd: Exec format error"
Kerberos IV has been removed from OpenBSD 3.4, but if you did an upgrade, the
old Kerberos IV binaries still will be on your system. This is a problem on
the i386 platform, as the old Kerberos files are in a.out, format and thus
unable to run on the standard ELF kernel (which has a.out emulations disabled,
as mentioned here). If you have encountered this problem, you need to override
the krb4 authentication method when you log in:
OpenBSD/i386 (puffy.openbsd.org) (ttyC0)
login: joeuser:passwd
password:
You can use the same "username:passwd" syntax with an ssh connection and with
su(1) to access your system. Now edit /etc/login.conf, and remove the krb4
references.
4.13 - Customizing the install process
siteXX.tgz file
The OpenBSD install/upgrade scripts allow the selection of a user-created set
called "siteXX.tgz", where XX is the release version (e.g. 34). The siteXX.tgz
file set is, like the other file sets, a gzip(1) compressed tar(1) archive
rooted in '/' and is un-tarred like the other sets with the options xzpf. This
set will be installed last, after all other file sets.
This file set allows the user to add to and/or override the files installed in
the 'normal' sets and thus customize the installation or upgrade.
Some example uses of a siteXX.tgz file:
* Create a siteXX.tgz file that contains all the file changes you made since
first installing OpenBSD. Then, if you have to re-create the system you
simply select siteXX.tgz during the re-install and all of your changes are
replicated on the new system.
* Create a series of machine specific directories that each contain a
siteXX.tgz file that contains files specific to those machine types.
Installation of machines (e.g. boxes with different graphics cards) of a
particular category can be completed by selecting the appropriate
siteXX.tgz file.
* Put the files you routinely customize in a same or similar way in a
siteXX.tgz file -- /etc/skel files, /etc/pf.conf, /var/www/conf/
httpd.conf, /etc/rc.conf, etc.
install.site/upgrade.site scripts
As the last step in the install/upgrade process, the scripts look in the root
directory of the newly installed/upgraded system for install.site or
upgrade.site, as appropriate to the current process, and runs this script in
an environment chrooted to the installed/upgraded system's root. Remember, the
upgrade is done from a booted file system, so your target file system is
actually mounted on /mnt. However, your script can be written as if it it is
running in the "normal" root of your file system. Since this script is run
after all the files are installed, you have almost full functionality of your
system (though, in single user mode) when your script runs.
Note that the install.site script would have to be in a siteXX.tgz file, while
the upgrade.site script could be put in the root directory before the upgrade,
or could be put in a siteXX.tgz file.
The scripts can be used to do anything possible in a script.
* Remove files that are installed/upgraded that you don't want present on
the system.
* Remove/upgrade/install the packages you want on the installed system.
* Do an immediate backup/archive of the new system before you expose it to
the rest of the world.
The combination of siteXX.tgz and install.site/upgrade.site files is intended
to give the user broad customization capabilities without having to build
their own custom install sets.
4.14 - How can I install a number of similar systems?
Here are some tools you can use when you have to deploy a number of similar
OpenBSD systems.
siteXX.tgz and install/upgrade.site files
See the above article.
Restore from dump(8)
On most platforms, the boot media includes the restore(8) program, which can
be used to restore a backup made by dump(8). Thus, you could boot from a
floppy, CD, or bsd.rd file, then fdisk, disklabel, and restore the desired
configuration from tape or other media, and install the boot blocks. More
details here.
Disk imaging
Unfortunately, there are no known disk imaging packages which are FFS-aware
and can make an image containing only the active file space. Most of the major
disk imaging solutions will treat an OpenBSD partition as a "generic"
partition, and can make an image of the whole disk. This often accomplishes
your goal, but usually with huge amounts of wasted space -- an empty, 10G /
home partition will require 10G of space in the image, even if there isn't a
single file in it. While you can typically install a drive image to a larger
drive, you would not be able to directly use the extra space, and you would
not be able to install an image to a smaller drive.
If this is an acceptable situation, you may find the dd command will do what
you need, allowing you to copy one disk to another, sector-for-sector. This
would provide the same functionality as commercial programs without the cost.
4.15 - How can I get a dmesg(8) to report an install problem?
When reporting a problem, it is critical to include the complete system dmesg
(8). However, often when you need to do this, it is because the system is
working improperly or won't install so you may not have disk, network, or
other resources you need to get the dmesg to the appropriate mail list. There
are other ways, however:
* Floppy disk: The boot disks and CD-ROM has enough tools to let you record
your dmesg to an MSDOS floppy disk for reading on another machine. Place
an MSDOS formatted floppy in your disk drive and execute the following
commands:
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0a /mnt
dmesg >/mnt/dmesg.txt
umount /mnt
If you have another OpenBSD system, you can also write it to an OpenBSD
compatible floppy -- often, the boot floppy has enough room on it to hold
the dmesg. In that case, leave off the "-t msdos" above.
* Serial Console: See this article on setting up the serial console, then
capture the output to a file.
* FTP: Under some circumstances, you may be able to use the ftp(1) client on
the boot disk or CD-ROM to send the dmesg to a local FTP server, where you
can retrieve it later.
4.16 - Upgrading/reinstalling OpenBSD/i386 using bsd.rd-a.out
It is normally possible to perform upgrades and installs using the bsd.rd
kernel. However, with OpenBSD 3.4, the i386 platform switched executable
format from a.out to ELF, so older boot loaders (OpenBSD 3.3 and before) are
unable to run the new-format bsd.rd kernel.
To circumvent this problem, and allow upgrades to be performed using bsd.rd,
an a.out version of bsd.rd has been made available on the FTP distribution.
This file, bsd.rd-a.out, can be booted by OpenBSD 3.3 and below, but is a
genuine OpenBSD 3.4 kernel, including the new ELF boot loader, so can be used
to bootstrap OpenBSD/i386 3.4 from an older system.
Simply download bsd.rd-a.out and place it in your machine's root directory.
Boot it instead of the normal bsd or bsd.rd kernels as shown here (specifying
bsd.rd-a.out as your boot kernel, of course).
If you wish to install -current, it is recommended you first install a minimal
3.4-release system (base34.tgz, etc34.tgz, bsd), then reinstall using the
-snapshot bsd.rd file.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq4.html,v 1.167 2004/03/28 02:55:09 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
5 - Building the System from Source
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 5.1 - OpenBSD's Flavors
* 5.2 - Why do I need a custom kernel?
* 5.3 - Kernel configuration files
* 5.4 - Building your own kernel
* 5.5 - Boot-time configuration
* 5.6 - Getting more verbose output during boot
* 5.7 - Using config(8) to change your kernel
* 5.8 - Common Problems when Compiling and Building
+ 5.8.1 - The build stopped with a "Signal 11" error
+ 5.8.2 - "make build" fails with "cannot open output file snake: is a
directory"
* 5.9 - How do I build an OpenBSD release?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1 - OpenBSD's Flavors
There are three "flavors" of OpenBSD:
* -release: The version of OpenBSD shipped every six months on CD.
* -stable: Release, plus patches considered critical to security and
reliability.
* -current: The to-the-moment version of OpenBSD, which will turn into the
next release.
Graphically, the development of these flavors looks something like this:
,------o-----------o----X 3.1 Stable
| . .
| . ,------o---------o----X 3.2 Stable
| . | . .
| . | . ,----o----------o--> 3.3 Stable
| . | . | . .
| . | . | . ,-----o--> 3.4 Stable
| . | . | . | .
| . | . | . | .
-->3.1Rel----->3.2Rel----->3.3Rel----->3.4Rel----> Current
Time --->
The code tree is branched between -current, -release and -stable every six
months -- -release becomes a frozen point (a "Tag") in the history of the
source tree - it is never changed, and is what is on the CDs and FTP servers.
-Current is where active work is done, and turns into the next -release of
OpenBSD.
The -stable (also known as the "Patch branch") is based on -release, and as
one can see, it is a "branch" from the development path of OpenBSD. As
important fixes are made to -current, they are "back ported" into the -stable
branches. In the above illustration, the vertical dotted lines are bug fixes
being incorporated into the -stable branches. You will also note that in the
above example, the 3.1-stable branch came to an end with 3.3-release, and the
3.2-stable branch came to an end with 3.4-release -- old releases are
typically supported up to two releases back. It takes resources and time to
support older versions, while we might like to provide ongoing support for old
releases, we would rather focus on new features. The -stable branch is, by
design, very easy to build from -release of the same version (i.e., going from
3.4-release to 3.4-stable).
The -stable branch is -release plus patches found on the errata page, and some
simple fixes that do not merit an errata entry. Usually, the operation of
-stable is the same as the -release it is based on. If the man pages have to
change, it probably won't go into -stable. In other words, new device support
will NOT be added to -stable, and new feature support will rarely be added
unless it is considered very important.
Warning: -current is a moving target. It changes almost minute by minute, and
may well change several times in the time it takes to retrieve the source
code. As indicated earlier, there is no promise that the system compiles or
that it works (of course, the hope is it does). It is entirely possible and
not uncommon to get the -current source and have it fail to compile, whereas
five minutes later, it may work just fine. If you are not prepared to deal
with this, stay away from -current.
Most users should be running either -stable or -release. That being said, many
people do run -current on production systems, and it is important that some
people do so to identify bugs and test new features. However, if you don't
know how to properly describe, diagnose and deal with a problem, don't tell
yourself (or anyone else) that you are "helping the project" by running
-current. "It didn't work!" is not a useful bug report. "The recent changes to
the pciide driver broke compatibility with my Slugchip-based IDE interface,
dmesg of working and broken systems follow..." might be a useful report.
There are times where "normal" users may wish to live on the cutting edge and
run -current. The most common reason is that the user has a device which is
not supported by -release (and thus, not -stable), or wishes to use a new
feature of the -current. In this case, the choice may be either -current or
not using the device, and -current may be the lesser evil. However, one should
not expect hand-holding from the developers.
Snapshots
Between formal releases of OpenBSD, snapshots are made available through the
FTP sites. As the name implies, these are builds of whatever code is in the
tree at the instant the builder grabbed a copy of the code for that particular
platform. Remember, on some platforms, it may be DAYS before the snapshot
build is completed and put out for distribution. There is no promise that the
snapshots are completely functional, or even install. Often, a change that
needs to be tested may trigger snapshot creation. Some platforms have
snapshots built on an almost daily basis, others will be much less frequent.
If you desire to run -current, a recent snapshot is often all you need, and
upgrading to a snapshot is usually a good starting point before attempting to
build -current.
It is sometimes asked if there is any way to get a copy of exactly the code
used to build a snapshot. The answer is no. First, there is no significant
benefit to this. Second, the snapshots are built as desired, as time permits,
and as resources become available. On fast platforms, one might be able to
build several snapshots in a day. On slower platforms, it may take a week or
more to build a snapshot. Providing tags or markers in the source tree for
each snapshot would be quite impractical.
Keeping Things in Sync
It is important to understand that OpenBSD is an Operating System, intended to
be taken as a whole, not a kernel with a bunch of utilities stuck on. You must
make sure your kernel, "userland" (the supporting utilities and files) and
ports tree are all in sync, or unpleasant things will happen. Said another way
(because people just keep making the error), you can not run brand new ports
on a month old system, or rebuild a kernel from -current source and expect it
to work with a -release userland. Yes, this does mean you need to update your
system if you want to run a new program which was added to the ports tree
today. Sorry, but again, OpenBSD has limited resources available.
One should also understand that when upgrading by source, the update process
is supported in only one direction: from older to newer, and from -stable to
-current. You can not run 3.4-current (or a snapshot), then decide you are
living too dangerously, and step back to 3.4-stable. You are on your own if
you choose any path other than the supported option of reloading your system
from scratch, do not expect assistance from the OpenBSD development team.
Yes, this does mean you should think long and hard before committing yourself
to using -current.
5.2 - Why do I need a custom kernel?
Actually, you probably don't.
A custom kernel is a kernel built with a configuration file other than the
provided GENERIC configuration file. A custom kernel can be based on -release,
-stable or -current code, just as a GENERIC kernel can be. While compiling
your own GENERIC kernel is supported by the OpenBSD team, compiling your own
custom kernel is not.
The standard OpenBSD kernel configuration (GENERIC) is designed to be suitable
for most people. More people have broken their system by trying to tweak their
kernel than have improved system operation. There are some people that believe
that you must customize your kernel and system for optimum performance, but
this is not true for OpenBSD. Only the most advanced and knowledgeable users
with the most demanding applications need to worry about a customized kernel
or system.
Some reasons you might want or need to build a custom kernel:
* You really know what you are doing, and want to shoe-horn OpenBSD onto a
computer with a small amount of RAM by removing device drivers you don't
need.
* You really know what you are doing, and wish to remove default options or
add options which may not have been enabled by default (and have good
reason to do so).
* You really know what you are doing, and wish to enable experimental
options.
* You really know what you are doing, and have a special need that is not
met by GENERIC, and aren't going to ask why it doesn't work if something
goes wrong.
Some reasons why you should not build a custom kernel:
* You do not need to, normally.
* You will not get a faster system.
* You are likely to make a less reliable machine.
* You will not get any support from developers.
* You will be expected to reproduce any problem with a GENERIC kernel before
developers take any problem report seriously.
* Users and developers will laugh at you when you break your system.
* Custom compiler options usually do a better job of exposing compiler
problems than improving system performance.
Removing device drivers may speed the boot process on your system, but can
complicate recovery should you have a hardware problem, and is very often done
wrong. Removing device drivers will not make your system run faster by any
noticeable amount, though can produce a smaller kernel. Removing debugging and
error checking can result in a measurable performance gain, but will make it
impossible to troubleshoot a system if something goes wrong.
Again, developers will usually ignore bug reports dealing with custom kernels,
unless the problem can be reproduced in a GENERIC kernel as well. You have
been warned.
5.3 - Kernel configuration files
OpenBSD kernel generation is controlled by configuration files, which are
located in the /usr/src/sys/arch/<arch>/conf/ directory by default. All
architectures have a file, GENERIC, which is used to generate the standard
OpenBSD kernel for that platform. There may also be other configuration files
which are used to create kernels with different focuses, for example, for
minimal RAM, diskless workstations, etc.
The configuration file is processed by config(8), which creates and populates
a compilation directory in ../compile, on a typical installation, that would
be in /usr/src/sys/arch/<arch>/compile/. config(8) also creates a Makefile,
and other files required to successfully build the kernel.
Kernel Configuration Options are options that you add to your kernel
configuration that place certain features into your kernel. This allows you to
have exactly the support you want, without having support for unneeded
devices. There are a multitude of options that allow you to customize your
kernel. Here we will go over only some of them, those that are most commonly
used. Check the options(4) man page for a complete list of options, and as
these change from time to time, you should make sure you use a man page for
the same version of OpenBSD you are building. You can also check the example
configuration files that are available for your architecture.
Do not add, remove, or change options in your kernel unless you actually have
a reason to do so! The only kernel configuration which is supported by the
OpenBSD team is the GENERIC kernel, the combination of the options in /usr/src
/sys/arch/<arch>/conf/GENERIC and /usr/src/sys/conf/GENERIC as shipped by the
OpenBSD team (i.e., NOT edited). Reporting a problem on a customized kernel
will almost always result in you being told to try to reproduce the problem
with a GENERIC kernel. Not all options are compatible with each other, and
many options are required for the system to work. There is no guarantee that
just because you manage to get a custom kernel compiled that it will actually
run.
You can see the platform-specific configuration files here:
* alpha Kernel Configuration Files
* i386 Kernel Configuration files
* macppc Kernel Configuration files
* sparc Kernel Configuration Files
* sparc64 Kernel Configuration Files
* vax Kernel Configuration Files
* hppa Kernel Configuration Files
* Other Arch's
Look closely at these files and you will notice a line near the top similar
to:
include "../../../conf/GENERIC"
This means that it is referencing another configuration file, one that stores
platform-independent options. When creating your Kernel Config, be sure to
look through sys/conf/GENERIC.
Kernel configuration options should be placed in your kernel configuration
file in the format of:
option name
For example, to place option "DEBUG" in the kernel, add a line like this:
option DEBUG
Options in the OpenBSD kernel are translated into compiler preprocessor
options, therefore an option like DEBUG would have the source compiled with
option -DDEBUG, which is equivalent to doing a #define DEBUG throughout the
kernel.
Sometimes, you may wish to disable an option that is already defined,
typically in the "src/sys/conf/GENERIC" file. While you could modify a copy of
that file, a better choice would be to use the rmoption statement. For
example, if you really wanted to disable the in-kernel debugger (not
recommended!), you would add a line such as:
rmoption DDB
in your kernel configuration file. option DDB is defined in src/sys/conf/
GENERIC, but the above rmoption line deactivates it.
Once again, please see options(4) for more information about the specifics of
these options. Also note that many of the options also have their own manual
pages -- always read everything available about an option before adding or
removing it from your kernel.
5.4 - Building your own kernel
Full instructions for creating your own custom kernel are in the afterboot(8)
man page.
To compile your kernel from the CD-ROM you need to first have the source code
available. The source is available on both the official CD (disk 3) and on the
FTP sites. The following example assumes that CD3 is mounted on /mnt:
# cd /usr/src
# tar xvzf /mnt/src.tar.gz
Note: If you are downloading from the FTP servers, you will find TWO files,
src.tar.gz and sys.tar.gz. The first is the "userland" -- everything but the
kernel, the second is the kernel source. Download and extract both of them as
above, as for most uses, you will want both. On the CD-ROM, they are combined
into one file.
Now to create your custom kernel it is easiest to start with the GENERIC
kernel. This is located at /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/GENERIC, where $ARCH
is your architecture. There are other sample configurations available in that
directory as well. Here are two examples for compiling your kernel. The first
example is compiling your kernel on a read-only source tree. The second on a
writable source tree.
# cd /somewhere
# cp /usr/src/sys/arch/$ARCH/conf/SOMEFILE .
# vi SOMEFILE (to make the changes you want)
# config -s /usr/src/sys -b . SOMEFILE
followed by either:
# make depend
- OR -
# make clean
# make
You must run 'make depend' when you have made any changes (including updates
and patches) to your source tree (in other words, almost always, unless you
need to run 'make clean').
If you have made changes to your kernel configuration options, and/or made
major changes to your source tree, you should use 'make clean' instead of the
above 'made depend'. Note that it is always safe to do a 'make clean', though
it may result in longer compile times, as more will be rebuilt.
To compile a kernel inside a writable source tree do the following:
# cd sys/arch/$ARCH/conf
# vi SOMEFILE (to make any changes you want)
# config SOMEFILE (read more about it here: config(8))
# cd ../compile/SOMEFILE
# make
Where $ARCH is the architecture you are using (e.g. i386). You can also do a
make depend to make the dependencies for the next time you compile your
kernel.
To move your kernel into place:
# cp /bsd /bsd.old
# cp /sys/arch/$ARCH/compile/SOMEFILE/bsd /bsd
To revert to your old kernel at boot you just need to
boot> bsd.old
and your old kernel will be loaded instead of /bsd.
Sometimes when you build a new kernel you will be required to install new
bootblocks. To do so, read FAQ 14, Installing Bootblocks, which will give you
an overview on using OpenBSD's Bootloader.
5.5 - Boot-Time Configuration
Sometimes when booting your system you might notice that the kernel finds your
device but maybe at the wrong IRQ. And maybe you need to use this device right
away. Well, without rebuilding the kernel you can use OpenBSD's boot time
kernel configuration. This will only correct your problem for one time. If you
reboot, you will have to repeat this procedure. So, this is only meant as a
temporary fix, and you should correct the problem by fixing and recompiling
your kernel. Your kernel does however need option BOOT_CONFIG in the kernel,
which GENERIC does have.
Most of this document can be found in the man page boot_config(8).
To boot into the User Kernel Config, or UKC, use the -c option at boot time.
boot> boot hd0a:/bsd -c
Or whichever kernel it is you want to boot. Doing this will bring up a UKC
prompt. From here you can issue commands directly to the kernel specifying
devices you want to change or disable or even enable.
Here is a list of common commands in the UKC.
* add device - Add a device through copying another
* change devno | device - Modify one or more devices
* disable devno | device - Disable one or more devices
* enable devno | device - Enable one or more devices
* find devno | device - Find one or more devices
* help - Short summary of these commands
* list - List ALL known devices
* exit/quit - Continue Booting
* show [attr [val]] - Show devices with an attribute and optional with a
specified value
Once you get your device configured, use quit or exit and continue booting.
After doing so you should correct your Kernel configuration and Compile a new
kernel. Refer to Building your own kernel for help.
5.6 - Getting more verbose output during boot
Getting more verbose output can be very helpful when trying to debug problems
when booting. If you have a problem wherein your boot floppy won't boot and
need to get more information, simply reboot. When you get to the "boot>"
prompt, boot with boot -c. This will bring you into the UKC>, then do:
UKC> verbose
autoconf verbose enabled
UKC> quit
Now you will be given extremely verbose output upon boot.
5.7 - Using config(8) to change your kernel
The -e and -u options with config(8) can be extremely helpful and save wasted
time compiling your kernel. The -e flag allows you to enter the UKC or User
Kernel Config on a running system. These changes will then take place on your
next reboot. The -u flag tests to see if any changes were made to the running
kernel during boot, meaning you used boot -c to enter the UKC while booting
your system.
The following example shows the disabling of the ep* devices in the kernel.
For safety's sake you must use the -o option which writes the changes out to
the file specified. For example : config -e -o bsd.new /bsd will write the
changes to bsd.new. The example doesn't use the -o option, therefore changes
are just ignored, and not written back to the kernel binary. For more
information pertaining to error and warning messages read the config(8) man
page.
$ sudo config -e /bsd
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MST 2003
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
warning: no output file specified
Enter 'help' for information
ukc> ?
help Command help list
add dev Add a device
base 8|10|16 Base on large numbers
change devno|dev Change device
disable attr val|devno|dev Disable device
enable attr val|devno|dev Enable device
find devno|dev Find device
list List configuration
lines count # of lines per page
show [attr [val]] Show attribute
exit Exit, without saving changes
quit Quit, saving current changes
timezone [mins [dst]] Show/change timezone
nmbclust [number] Show/change NMBCLUSTERS
cachepct [number] Show/change BUFCACHEPERCENT
nkmempg [number] Show/change NKMEMPAGES
shmseg [number] Show/change SHMSEG
shmmaxpgs [number] Show/change SHMMAXPGS
ukc> list
0 audio* at sb0|sb*|gus0|pas0|sp0|ess*|wss0|wss*|ym*|eap*|eso*|sv*|neo*|cmpci*
|clcs*|clct*|auich*|autri*|auvia*|fms*|uaudio*|maestro*|esa*|yds*|emu* flags 0x0
1 midi* at sb0|sb*|opl*|opl*|opl*|opl*|ym*|mpu*|autri* flags 0x0
2 nsphy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
3 nsphyter* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|
vr*|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep
*|ep*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
4 qsphy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
5 inphy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
6 iophy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
7 eephy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
8 exphy* at aue*|xe*|ef*|gx*|stge*|bge*|nge*|sk*|ste*|sis*|sf*|wb*|tx*|tl*|vr*
|ne0|ne1|ne2|ne*|ne*|ne*|dc*|dc*|rl*|fxp*|fxp*|xl*|xl*|ep0|ep0|ep0|ep*|ep*|ep*|e
p*|ep* phy -1 flags 0x0
[...snip...]
ukc> disable ep
67 ep0 disabled
68 ep* disabled
69 ep* disabled
155 ep0 disabled
156 ep0 disabled
157 ep* disabled
158 ep* disabled
210 ep* disabled
ukc> quit
not forced
In the above example, all ep* devices are disabled in the kernel and will not
be probed. In some situations where you have used the UKC during boot, via
boot -c, you will need these changes to be written out permanently. To do this
you need to use the -u option. In the following example, the computer was
booted into the UKC and the wi(4) device was disabled. Since changes made with
boot -c are NOT permanent, these changes must be written out. This example
writes the changes made from boot -c into a new kernel binary bsd.new.
$ sudo config -e -u -o bsd.new /bsd
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MST 2003
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
Processing history...
105 wi* disabled
106 wi* disabled
Enter 'help' for information
ukc> quit
5.8 - Common Problems when Compiling and Building
5.8.1 - The build stopped with a "Signal 11" error
Building OpenBSD and other programs from source is a task which pushes
hardware harder than most others, making intensive use of CPU, disk and
memory. As a result, if you have hardware which has a problem, the most likely
time for that problem to appear is during a build. Signal 11 failures are
typically caused by hardware problems, very often memory problems, but can
also be CPU, main board, or heat issues. Your system may actually be very
stable otherwise, but unable to compile programs.
You will probably find it best to repair or replace the components that are
causing trouble, as problems may show themselves in other ways in the future.
If you have hardware which you really wish to use and causes you no other
problem, simply install a snapshot or a release.
For much more information, see the Sig11 FAQ.
5.8.2 - "make build" fails with "cannot open output file snake: is a
directory"
This is the result of two separate errors:
* You did not fetch or update your CVS tree properly. When doing a CVS
checkout operation, you must use the "-P" option, when you update your
source tree with CVS, you must use "-Pd" options to cvs(1), as documented
in the anoncvs guide, the upgrade-minifaq and the FAQ. These options make
sure new directories are added and removed from the tree as OpenBSD
evolves.
* You did not properly create the obj directory before your build. Building
the tree without a /usr/obj directory is not supported.
It is important to carefully follow the instructions when getting and updating
your source code and building your tree.
5.9 - How do I build an OpenBSD release?
After building your system in place, you can create the OpenBSD file sets that
can be used to install your system on another computer.
This is detailed in release(8)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq5.html,v 1.93 2004/03/18 23:53:53 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
6 - Networking
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 6.1 - Before we go any further
* 6.2 - Initial network setup
* 6.3 - How do I filter and firewall with OpenBSD?
* 6.4 - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
* 6.5 - Point to Point Protocol
* 6.6 - Tuning networking parameters
* 6.7 - Using NFS
* 6.8 - Setting up a PPTP connection in OpenBSD
* 6.9 - Setting up a bridge with OpenBSD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.1 - Before we go any further
For the bulk of this document, it helps if you have read and at least
partially understood the Kernel Configuration and Setup section of the FAQ,
and the ifconfig(8) and netstat(1) man pages.
If you are a network administrator, and you are setting up routing protocols,
if you are using your OpenBSD box as a router, if you need to go in depth into
IP networking, you really need to read Understanding IP Addressing. This is an
excellent document. "Understanding IP Addressing" contains fundamental
knowledge to build upon when working with IP networks, especially when you
deal with or are responsible for more than one network.
If you are working with applications such as web servers, ftp servers, and
mail servers, you may benefit greatly by reading the RFCs. Most likely, you
can't read all of them. Pick some topics that you are interested in, or that
you use in your network environment. Look them up, find out how they are
intended to work. The RFCs define many (thousands of) standards for protocols
on the Internet and how they are supposed to work.
6.2 - Initial Network Setup
6.2.1 - Identifying and Setting Up Your Network Interfaces
To start off, you must first identify your network interface. In OpenBSD,
interfaces are named for the type of card, not for the type of connection. You
can see your network card get initialized during the booting process, or after
the booting process using the dmesg(8) command. You also have the chance of
seeing your network interface using the ifconfig(8) command. For example, here
is the output of dmesg for a Intel Fast Ethernet network card, which uses the
device name fxp.
fxp0 at pci0 dev 10 function 0 "Intel 82557" rev 0x0c: irq 5, address 00:02:b3:2b:10:f7
inphy0 at fxp0 phy 1: i82555 10/100 media interface, rev. 4
If you don't know what your device name is, please look at the supported
hardware list for your platform. You will find a list of many common card
names and their OpenBSD device names here. Combine the short alphabetical
device name (such as fxp) with a number assigned by the kernel and you have an
interface name (such as fxp0).
You can find out what network interfaces have been identified by using the
ifconfig(8) utility. The following command will show all network interfaces on
a system. This sample output shows us only one physical ethernet interface, an
fxp(4).
$ ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 33224
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
lo1: flags=8008<LOOPBACK,MULTICAST> mtu 33224
fxp0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
address: 00:04:ac:dd:39:6a
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex)
status: active
inet 10.0.0.38 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255
inet6 fe80::204:acff:fedd:396a%fxp0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
pflog0: flags=0<> mtu 33224
pfsync0: flags=0<> mtu 2020
sl0: flags=c010<POINTOPOINT,LINK2,MULTICAST> mtu 296
sl1: flags=c010<POINTOPOINT,LINK2,MULTICAST> mtu 296
ppp0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ppp1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
tun0: flags=10<POINTOPOINT> mtu 3000
tun1: flags=10<POINTOPOINT> mtu 3000
enc0: flags=0<> mtu 1536
bridge0: flags=0<> mtu 1500
bridge1: flags=0<> mtu 1500
vlan0: flags=0<> mtu 1500
address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
vlan1: flags=0<> mtu 1500
address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
gre0: flags=9010<POINTOPOINT,LINK0,MULTICAST> mtu 1450
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
gif1: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
gif2: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
gif3: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
As you can see here, ifconfig(8) gives us a lot more information than we need
at this point. But, it still allows us to see our interface. In the above
example, the interface card is already configured. This is obvious because an
IP network is already configured on fxp0, hence the values "inet 10.0.0.38
netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255". Also, the UP and RUNNING flags are
set.
Finally, you will notice several other interfaces come enabled by default.
These are virtual interfaces that serve various functions. The following
manual pages describe them:
* lo - Loopback Interface
* pflog - Packet Filter Logging Interface
* sl - SLIP Network Interface
* ppp - Point to Point Protocol
* tun - Tunnel Network Interface
* enc - Encapsulating Interface
* bridge - Ethernet Bridge Interface
* vlan - IEEE 802.1Q Encapsulation Interface
* gre - GRE/MobileIP Encapsulation Interface
* gif - Generic IPv4/IPv6 Tunnel Interface
If you don't have your interface configured, the first step is to create the /
etc/hostname.xxx file, where the name of your interface will take the place of
xxx. From the information in the examples above, the name would be /etc/
hostname.fxp0. The layout of this file is simple:
address_family address netmask broadcast [other options]
(Much more detail about the format of this file can be found in the
hostname.if(5) man page.)
A typical interface configuration file, configured for an IPv4 address, would
look like this:
$ cat /etc/hostname.fxp0
inet 10.0.0.38 255.255.255.0 NONE
You could also specify media types for Ethernet, say, if you wanted to force
100baseTX full-duplex mode.
inet 10.0.0.38 255.255.255.0 NONE media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
(Of course, you should never force full duplex mode unless both sides of the
connection are set to do this! In the absence of special needs, media settings
should be excluded.)
Or, you may want to use special flags specific to a certain interface. The
format of the hostname file doesn't change much!
$ cat /etc/hostname.vlan0
inet 172.21.0.0 255.255.255.0 NONE vlan 2 vlandev fxp1
The next step from here is to setup your default gateway. To do this, simply
put the IP of your gateway in the file /etc/mygate. This will allow for your
gateway to be set upon boot. From here you should setup your nameservers, and
your /etc/hosts file (see the hosts(5) man page). To setup your nameservers,
you will create a file called /etc/resolv.conf. You can read more about the
format of this file in the resolv.conf(5) man page. But for a standard usage,
here is an example. In this example your domain servers are 125.2.3.4 and
125.2.3.5. You also belong in the domain "example.com".
$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
search example.com
nameserver 125.2.3.4
nameserver 125.2.3.5
lookup file bind
From here, you can either reboot or run the /etc/netstart script. You can do
this by simply typing (as root):
# sh /etc/netstart
writing to routing socket: File exists
add net 127: gateway 127.0.0.1: File exists
writing to routing socket: File exists
add net 224.0.0.0: gateway 127.0.0.1: File exists
Notice that a few errors were produced. By running this script, you are
reconfiguring things which are already configured. As such, some routes
already exist in the kernel routing table. From here your system should be up
and running. Again, you can check to make sure that your interface was setup
correctly with ifconfig(8). You can also check your routes via netstat(1) or
route(8). If you are having routing problems, you may want to use the -n flag
to route(8) which prints the IP addresses rather than doing a DNS lookup and
displaying the hostname. Here is an example of viewing your routing tables
using both programs.
$ netstat -rn
Routing tables
Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Interface
default 10.0.0.1 UGS 0 86 - fxp0
127/8 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 - lo0
127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 0 0 - lo0
10.0.0/24 link#1 UC 0 0 - fxp0
10.0.0.1 aa:0:4:0:81:d UHL 1 0 - fxp0
10.0.0.38 127.0.0.1 UGHS 0 0 - lo0
224/4 127.0.0.1 URS 0 0 - lo0
Encap:
Source Port Destination Port Proto SA(Address/SPI/Proto)
$ route show
Routing tables
Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags
default 10.0.0.1 UG
127.0.0.0 LOCALHOST UG
localhost LOCALHOST UH
10.0.0.0 link#1 U
10.0.0.1 aa:0:4:0:81:d UH
10.0.0.38 LOCALHOST UGH
BASE-ADDRESS.MCA LOCALHOST U
6.2.2 - Setting up your OpenBSD box as a Gateway
This is the basic information you need to set up your OpenBSD box as a gateway
(also called a router). If you are using OpenBSD as a router on the Internet,
we suggest that you also read the Packet Filter setup instructions below to
block potentially malicious traffic. Also, due to the low availability of IPv4
addresses from network service providers and regional registries, you may want
to look at Network Address Translation for information on conserving your IP
address space.
The GENERIC kernel already has the ability to allow IP Forwarding, but needs
to be turned on. You should do this using the sysctl(8) utility. To change
this permanently you should edit the file /etc/sysctl.conf to allow for IP
Forwarding. To do so add this line in that configuration file.
net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
To make this change without rebooting you would use the sysctl(8) utility
directly. Remember though that this change will no longer exist after a
reboot, and needs to be run as root.
# sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
net.inet.ip.forwarding: 0 -> 1
Now modify the routes on the other hosts on both sides. There are many
possible uses of OpenBSD as a router, using software such as routed(8), gated,
mrtd, and zebra. OpenBSD has support in the ports collection for zebra, gated
and mrtd. OpenBSD supports several T1, HSSI, ATM, FDDI, Ethernet, and serial
(PPP/SLIP) interfaces.
6.2.3 - Setting up aliases on an interface
OpenBSD has a simple mechanism for setting up ip aliases on an interface. To
do this simply edit the file /etc/hostname.<if>. This file is read upon boot
by the /etc/rc(8) script, which is part of the rc startup hierarchy. For the
example, we assume that the user has an interface dc0 and is on the network
192.168.0.0. Other important information:
* IP for dc0 is 192.168.0.2
* NETMASK is 255.255.255.0
A few side notes about aliases. In OpenBSD you use the interface name only.
There is no difference between the first alias and the second alias. Unlike
some other operating systems, OpenBSD doesn't refer to them as dc0:0, dc0:1.
If you are referring to a specific aliased IP address with ifconfig, or adding
an alias, be sure to say "ifconfig int alias" instead of just "ifconfig int"
at the command line. You can delete aliases with "ifconfig int delete".
Assuming you are using multiple IP addresses which are in the same IP subnet
with aliases, your netmask setting for each alias becomes 255.255.255.255.
They do not need to follow the netmask of the first IP bound to the interface.
In this example, /etc/hostname.dc0, two aliases are added to the device dc0,
which, by the way, was configured as 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0.
# cat /etc/hostname.dc0
inet 192.168.0.2 255.255.255.0 media 100baseTX
inet alias 192.168.0.3 255.255.255.255
inet alias 192.168.0.4 255.255.255.255
Once you've made this file, it just takes a reboot for it to take effect. You
can, however, bring up the aliases by hand using the ifconfig(8) utility. To
bring up the first alias you would use the command:
# ifconfig dc0 inet alias 192.168.0.3 netmask 255.255.255.255
To view these aliases you must use the command:
$ ifconfig -A
dc0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST>
media: Ethernet manual
inet 192.168.0.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
inet 192.168.0.3 netmask 0xffffffff broadcast 192.168.0.3
6.3 - How do I filter and firewall with OpenBSD?
Packet Filter (from here on referred to as PF) is OpenBSD's system for
filtering TCP/IP traffic and doing Network Address Translation. PF is also
capable of normalizing and conditioning TCP/IP traffic and providing bandwidth
control and packet prioritization, and can be used to create powerful and
flexible firewalls. It is described in the PF User's Guide.
6.4 - DHCP
6.4.1 DHCP Client
To use the DHCP client dhclient(8) included with OpenBSD, edit /etc/
hostname.xl0 (this is assuming your main ethernet interface is xl0. Yours
might be ep0 or fxp0 or something else!) All you need to put in this hostname
file is 'dhcp'
# echo dhcp >/etc/hostname.xl0
This will cause OpenBSD to automatically start the DHCP client on boot.
OpenBSD will gather its IP address, default gateway, and DNS servers from the
DHCP server.
If you want to start a dhcp client from the command line, make sure /etc/
dhclient.conf exists, then try:
# dhclient fxp0
Where fxp0 is the interface that you want to receive dhcp on.
No matter how you start the dhclient, you can edit the /etc/dhclient.conf file
to not update your DNS according to the dhcp server's idea of DNS by first
uncommenting the 'request' lines in it (they are examples of the default
settings, but you need to uncomment them to override dhclient's defaults.)
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name, lpr-servers, ntp-servers;
and then remove domain-name-servers. Of course, you may want to remove
hostname, or other settings too.
6.4.2 DHCP Server
If you want to use OpenBSD as a DHCP server dhcpd(8), edit /etc/rc.conf. Set
it up so that dhcpd_flags="-q" instead of dhcpd_flags=NO. Put the interfaces
that you want dhcpd to listen on in /etc/dhcpd.interfaces.
# echo xl1 xl2 xl3 >/etc/dhcpd.interfaces
Then, edit /etc/dhcpd.conf. The options are pretty self-explanatory.
option domain-name "example.com";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.3, 192.168.1.5;
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
option routers 192.168.1.1;
range 192.168.1.32 192.168.1.127;
}
This will tell your DHCP clients that the domain to append to DNS requests is
example.com (so, if the user types in 'telnet joe' then it will send them to
joe.example.com). It will point them to DNS servers 192.168.1.3 and
192.168.1.5. For hosts that are on the same network as an ethernet interface
on the OpenBSD machine, which is in the 192.168.1.0/24 range, it will assign
them an IP address between 192.168.1.32 and 192.168.1.127. It will set their
default gateway as 192.168.1.1.
If you want to start dhcpd(8) from the command line, after editing /etc/
dhcpd.conf, try:
# touch /var/db/dhcpd.leases
# dhcpd -q fxp0
The touch line is needed to create an empty dhcpd.leases file before dhcpd(8)
can start. The OpenBSD startup scripts will create this file if needed on
boot, but if you are starting dhcpd(8) manually, you must create it first.
fxp0 is an interface that you want to start serving DHCP on. The -q flag makes
dhcpd(8) quiet; otherwise it is very noisy.
If you are serving DHCP to a Windows box, you may want dhcpd(8) to give the
client a 'WINS' server address. To make this happen, just the following line
to your /etc/dhcpd.conf:
option netbios-name-servers 192.168.92.55;
(where 192.168.92.55 is the IP of your Windows or Samba server.) See
dhcp-options(5) for more options that your DHCP clients may want.
6.5 - PPP
Point-to-Protocol is generally what is used to create a connection to your ISP
via your modem. OpenBSD has 2 ways of doing this.
* pppd(8) - Which is the kernel ppp daemon.
* ppp(8) - Which is the userland ppp daemon.
The first one we will cover will be the userland PPP daemon. To start off you
will need some simple information about your ISP. Here is a list of helpful
information that you will need.
* Your ISP's dialup number
* Your nameserver
* Your username and password
* Your gateway
Some of these you can do without, but would be helpful in setting up your ppp.
The userland PPP daemon uses the file /etc/ppp/ppp.conf as its configuration
file. There are many helpful files in /etc/ppp that can have different setups
for many different situations. You should take a browse though that directory.
Also, make sure, that if you're not using a GENERIC kernel, that you have this
line in your configuration file:
pseudo-device tun 2
Initial Setup - for PPP(8)
Initial Setup for the userland PPP daemon consists of editing your /etc/ppp/
ppp.conf file. This file doesn't exist by default, but there is a file /etc/
ppp/ppp.conf.sample in which you can simply edit to create your own ppp.conf
file. Here I will start with the simplist setup and probably most used setup.
Here is a quick ppp.conf file that will simply connect to your ISP and set
your default routes and nameserver. With this file all the information you
need is your ISP's phone number and your username and password.
default:
set log Phase Chat LCP IPCP CCP tun command
set device /dev/cua01
set speed 115200
set dial "ABORT BUSY ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 5 \"\" AT OK-AT-OK ATE1Q0 OK\\dATDT\\T TIMEOUT 40 CONNECT"
The section under the default: tag will get executed each time. Here we setup
all our critical information. Here with "set log" we set our logging levels.
This can be changed; refer to ppp(8) for more info on setting up logging
levels. Our device gets set with "set device". This is the device that the
modem is on. In this example the modem is on com port 2. Therefore com port 1
would be /dev/cua00. With "set speed" we set the speed of our dialup
connection and with "set dial" we set our dialup parameters. With this we can
change our timeout time, etc. This line should stay pretty much as it is
though.
Now we can move on and setup our information specific to our ISP. We do this
by adding another tag under our default: section. This tag can be called
anything you want, easiest to just use the name of your ISP. Here I will use
myisp: as our tag referring to our ISP. Here is a simple setup incorporating
all we need to get ourselves connected.
myisp:
set phone 1234567
set login "ABORT NO\\sCARRIER TIMEOUT 5 ogin:--ogin: ppp word: ppp"
set timeout 120
set ifaddr 10.0.0.1/0 10.0.0.2/0 255.255.255.0 0.0.0.0
add default HISADDR
enable dns
Here we have setup essential info for that specific ISP. The first option "set
phone" sets your ISP's dialup number. The "set login" sets our login options.
Here we have the timeout set to 5; this means that we will abort our login
attempt after 5 seconds if no carrier. Otherwise it will wait for "login:" to
be sent and send in your username and password. In this example our Username =
ppp and Password = ppp. These values will need to be changed. The line "set
timeout" sets the idle timeout for the entire connection duration to 120
seconds. The "set ifaddr" line is a little tricky. Here is a more extensive
explanation.
set ifaddr 10.0.0.1/0 10.0.0.2/0 255.255.255.0 0.0.0.0
In the above line, we have it set in the format of "set ifaddr [myaddr[/nn]
[hisaddr[/nn] [netmask [triggeraddr]]]]". So the first IP specified is what we
want as our IP. If you have a static IP address, you set it here. In our
example we use /0 which says that no bits of this ip address need to match and
the whole thing can be replaced. The second IP specified is what we expect as
their IP. If you know this you can specify it. Again in our line we don't know
what will be assigned, so we let them tell us. The third option is our
netmask, here set to 255.255.255.0. If triggeraddr is specified, it is used in
place of myaddr in the initial IPCP negotiation. However, only an address in
the myaddr range will be accepted. This is useful when negotiating with some
PPP implementations that will not assign an IP number unless their peer
requests ``0.0.0.0''.
The next option used "add default HISADDR" sets our default route to their IP.
This is 'sticky', meaning that if their IP should change, our route will
automatically be updated. With "enable dns" we are telling our ISP to
authenticate our nameserver addresses. Do NOT do this if you are running a
local DNS, as ppp will simply circumvent its use by entering some nameserver
lines in /etc/resolv.conf.
Using PPP(8)
Now that we have our ppp.conf file setup we can start trying to make a
connection to our ISP. I will detail some commonly used arguments with ppp.
* ppp -auto myisp - This will run ppp, configure your interfaces and connect
to your ISP and then go into the background.
* ppp -ddial myisp - This is similar to -auto, but if your connection is
dropped it will try and reconnect.
By using /usr/sbin/ppp with no options will put you into interactive mode.
From here you can interact directly with the modem, it is great for debugging
problems in your ppp.conf file.
ppp(8) extras
In some situations you might want commands executed as your connection is made
or dropped. There are two files you can create for just these situations. /etc
/ppp/ppp.linkup and /etc/ppp/ppp.linkdown. Sample configurations can be viewed
here:
* ppp.linkup
* ppp.linkdown
Extended information can be found at FreeBSD Handbook entry on User PPP.
6.6 - Tuning networking parameters
6.6.1 - How can I tweak the kernel so that there are a higher number of
retries and longer timeouts for TCP sessions?
You would normally use this to allow for routing or connection problems. Of
course, for it to be most effective, both sides of the connection need to use
similar values.
To tweak this, use sysctl and increase the values of:
net.inet.tcp.keepinittime
net.inet.tcp.keepidle
net.inet.tcp.keepintvl
Using sysctl -a, you can see the current values of these (and many other)
parameters. To change one, use sysctl -w, as in sysctl -w
net.inet.tcp.keepidle=28800.
6.6.2 - How can I turn on directed broadcasts?
Normally, you don't want to do this. This allows someone to send traffic to
the broadcast address(es) of your connected network(s) if you are using your
OpenBSD box as a router.
There are some instances, in closed networks, where this may be useful,
particularly when using older implementations of the NetBIOS protocol. This is
another sysctl. sysctl -w net.inet.ip.directed-broadcast=1 turns this on. Read
about smurf attacks if you want to know why it is off by default.
6.6.3 - I don't want the kernel to dynamically allocate a certain port
There is a sysctl for this also. From sysctl(8):
Set the list of reserved TCP ports that should not be allocated by the
kernel dynamically. This can be used to keep daemons from stealing a
specific port that another program needs to function. List elements may
be separated by commas and/or whitespace.
# sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.baddynamic=749,750,751,760,761,871
It is also possible to add or remove ports from the current list.
# sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.baddynamic=+748
# sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.baddynamic=-871
6.7 - Simple NFS usage
NFS, or Network File System, is used to share a filesystem over the network. A
few choice man pages to read before trying to setup a NFS server are:
* nfsd(8)
* mountd(8)
* exports(5)
This section will go through the steps for a simple setup of NFS. This example
details a server on a LAN, with clients accessing NFS on the LAN. It does not
talk about securing NFS. We presume you have already setup packet filtering or
other firewalling protection, to prevent outside access. If you are allowing
outside access to your NFS server, and you have any kind of sensitive data
stored on it, we strongly recommend that you employ IPsec. Otherwise, people
can potentially see your NFS traffic. Someone could also pretend to be the IP
address which you are allowing into your NFS server. There are several attacks
that can result. When properly configured, IPsec protects against these types
of attacks.
Another important security note. Don't just add a filesystem to /etc/exports
without some kind of list of allowed host(s). Without a list of hosts which
can mount a particular directory, anyone on who can reach your host will be
able to mount your NFS exports.
NFS depends upon portmap(8) to be running before it will operate. Portmap(8)
is now off by default on OpenBSD 3.2 and later, so you must enable it in
rc.conf(8) by changing the portmap line to read:
portmap=YES
and reboot to make it take effect.
The setup consists of a server with the ip 10.0.0.1. This server will be
serving NFS only to clients within that network. The first step to setting up
NFS is to setup your /etc/exports file. This file lists which filesystems you
wish to have accessible via NFS and defines who is able to access them. There
are many options that you can use in your /etc/exports file, and it is best
that you read the exports(5) man page. For this example we have an /etc/
exports that looks like this:
#
# NFS exports Database
# See exports(5) for more information. Be very careful, misconfiguration
# of this file can result in your filesystems being readable by the world.
/work -alldirs -ro -network 10.0.0 -mask 255.255.255.0
This means that the local filesystem /work will be made available via NFS.
-alldirs specifies that clients will be able to mount at any point under the /
work mount point. -ro specifies that it will only be allowed to be mounted
read-only. The last two arguments specify that only clients within the
10.0.0.0 network using a netmask of 255.255.255.0 will be authorized to mount
this filesystem. This is important for some servers that are accessible by
different networks.
Once your /etc/exports file is setup, you can go ahead and setup your NFS
server. You should first make sure that options NFSSERVER & NFSCLIENT are in
your kernel configuration. (GENERIC kernel has these options included.) Next,
you should set nfs_server=YES in /etc/rc.conf. This will bring up both nfsd(8)
and mountd(8) when you reboot. Now, you can go ahead and start the daemons
yourself. These daemons need to be started as root, and you need to make sure
that portmap(8) is running on your system. Here is an example of starting nfsd
(8) which serves on both TCP and UDP using 4 daemons. You should set an
appropriate number of NFS server daemons to handle the maximum number of
concurrent client requests that you want to service.
# /sbin/nfsd -tun 4
Not only do you have to start the nfsd(8) server, but you need to start mountd
(8). This is the daemon that actually services the mount requests on NFS. To
start mountd(8), make sure an empty mountdtab file exists, and run the daemon:
# echo -n >/var/db/mountdtab
# /sbin/mountd
If you make changes to /etc/exports while NFS is already running, you need to
make mountd aware of this! Just HUP it:
# kill -HUP `cat /var/run/mountd.pid`
Checking Stats on NFS
From here, you can check to make sure that all these daemons are up and
registered with RPC. To do this, use rpcinfo(8).
$ rpcinfo -p 10.0.0.1
program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100005 1 udp 633 mountd
100005 3 udp 633 mountd
100005 1 tcp 916 mountd
100005 3 tcp 916 mountd
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
During normal usage, there are a few other utilities that allow you to see
what is happening with NFS. One is showmount(8), which allows you to view what
is currently mounted and who is mounting it. There is also nfsstat(8) which
shows much more verbose statistics. To use showmount(8), try /usr/bin/
showmount -a host. For example:
$ /usr/bin/showmount -a 10.0.0.1
All mount points on 10.0.0.1:
10.0.0.37:/work
Mounting NFS Filesystems
NFS filesystems should be mounted via mount(8), or more specifically,
mount_nfs(8). To mount a filesystem /work on host 10.0.0.1 to local filesystem
/mnt, do this (note that you don't need to use an IP address; mount will
resolve host names):
# mount -t nfs 10.0.0.1:/work /mnt
To have your system mount upon boot, add something like this to your /etc/
fstab:
10.0.0.1:/work /mnt nfs rw 0 0
It is important that you use 0 0 at the end of this line so that your computer
does not try to fsck the NFS filesystem on boot!!!! The other standard
security options, such as noexec, nodev, and nosuid, should also be used where
applicable. Such as:
10.0.0.1:/work /mnt nfs rw,nodev,nosuid 0 0
This way, no devices or setuid programs on the NFS server can subvert security
measures on the NFS client. If you are not mounting programs which you expect
to run on the NFS client, add noexec to this list.
6.8 - Setting up a PPTP connection in OpenBSD
NOTE: This does not apply to ALL ADSL providers, but much information can be
gleaned from the setup here. This is known to work for Inode, an ADSL provider
in Austria.
To start off, you need to install pptp. The port is located at /usr/ports/net/
pptp. Read FAQ 8, Ports for more information on the OpenBSD ports tree.
Because of a conflict between the In-Kernel gre(4) support and pptp, you will
need to re-compile your kernel, removing support for gre(4).
Patch to remove GRE(4) support.
Index: GENERIC
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/sys/conf/GENERIC,v
retrieving revision 1.86
diff -u -r1.86 GENERIC
--- GENERIC 14 Mar 2002 00:42:25 -0000 1.86
+++ GENERIC 17 May 2002 01:52:17 -0000
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@
pseudo-device enc 1 # option IPSEC needs the encapsulation interface
pseudo-device bridge 2 # network bridging support
pseudo-device vlan 2 # IEEE 802.1Q VLAN
-pseudo-device gre 1 # GRE encapsulation interface
+#pseudo-device gre 1 # GRE encapsulation interface
#pseudo-device strip 1 # Starmode Radio IP interface
pseudo-device pty 64 # pseudo-terminals
To recompile your kernel, check out OpenBSD source via cvs (refer to AnonCVS
web page for more information), apply the following patch, and rebuild your
kernel as per FAQ 5, Building a kernel.
After you have the pptp package installed and a new kernel, you need to edit a
few files to setup for your connection. This packages uses the in-house
OpenBSD ppp(8), so if you are familiar with ppp(8), much of the setup is the
same. Also, refer to FAQ 6, PPP.
* 1 - /etc/ppp/options
* 2 - /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
For the /etc/ppp/options file, a setup like below will most likely do all that
you need:
# cat /etc/ppp/options
name "LOGINNAME"
noauth
noipdefault
defaultroute
debug
LOGINNAME should be replaced with your User-ID.
The /etc/ppp/pap-secrets a line like:
# cat /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
LOGINNAME 10.0.0.138 PASSWORD
Where LOGINNAME is your User-ID and PASSWORD is your password. 10.0.0.138 is
the IP assigned to your MODEM in the case that you are using ADSL, etc. Make
sure this file stays readonly by root (mode 600).
6.8.1 - Assigning an address to your Network Interface
In the above example, our modem came with a preconfigured interface of
10.0.0.138. We now need to assign an address to OUR interface. It's best to
pick an IP close to the one given by your MODEM, or use the static IP assigned
to you. Read more about setting up interfaces in FAQ 6, Setup.
Once your interface is setup, you should be able to create a pptp connection
with the command:
# /usr/local/sbin/pptp 10.0.0.138 &
Since this uses the in-house OpenBSD ppp(8), two processes are started. You
can kill pptp by killing both these processes:
# kill -9 [pid of pppd]
$ kill -9 [pid of pptp]
It is recommended to open /var/log/messages in a extra terminal window, to
recognize possible problems.
# tail -f /var/log/messages
We also suggest that you put the startup command in /etc/rc.local so that you
automatically connect on reboot.
6.9 - Setting up a network bridge in OpenBSD
A bridge is a link between two or more separate networks. Unlike a router,
packets transfer through the bridge "invisibly" -- logically, the two network
segments appear to be one segment to nodes on either side of the bridge. The
bridge will only forward packets that have to pass from one segment to the
other, so among other things, they provide an easy way to reduce traffic in a
complex network and yet allow any node to access any other node when needed.
Note that because of this "invisible" nature, an interface in a bridge may or
may not have an IP address of its own. If it does, the interface has
effectively two modes of operation, one as part of a bridge, the other as a
normal, stand-alone NIC. If neither interface has an IP address, the bridge
will pass network data, but will not be externally maintainable (which can be
a feature).
An example of a bridge application
One of my computer racks has a number of older systems, none of which have a
built-in 10BASE-TX NIC. While they all have an AUI or AAUI connector, my
supply of transceivers is limited to coax. One of the machines on this rack is
an OpenBSD-based terminal server which is always on and connected to the
high-speed network. Adding a second NIC with a coax port will allow me to use
this machine as a bridge to the coax network.
This system has two NICs in it now, an Intel EtherExpress/100 (fxp0) and a
3c590-Combo card (ep0) for the coax port. fxp0 is the link to the rest of my
network and will thus have an IP address, ep0 is going to be for bridging only
and will have no IP address. Machines attached to the coax segment will
communicate as if they were on the rest of my network. So, how do we make this
happen?
The file hostname.fxp0 contains the configuration info for the fxp0 card. This
machine is set up using DHCP, so its file looks like this:
$ cat /etc/hostname.fxp0
dhcp NONE NONE NONE NONE
No surprises here.
The ep0 card is a bit different, as you might guess:
$ cat /etc/hostname.ep0
up media 10base2
Here, we are instructing the system to activate this interface using ifconfig
(8) and set it to 10BASE-2 (coax). No IP address or similar information needs
to be specified for this interface. The options the ep card accepts are
detailed in its man page.
Now, we need to set up the bridge. Bridges are initialized by the existence of
a file named something like bridgename.bridge0. Here is an example for my
situation here:
$ cat /etc/bridgename.bridge0
add fxp0
add ep0
up
This is saying set up a bridge consisting of the two NICs, fxp0 and ep0, and
activate it. Does it matter which order the cards are listed? No, remember a
bridge is very symmetrical -- packets flow in and out in both directions.
That's it! Reboot, and you now have a functioning bridge.
Filtering on a bridge
While there are certainly uses for a simple bridge like this, it is likely you
might want to DO something with the packets as they go through your bridge. As
you might expect, Packet Filter can be used to restrict what traffic goes
through your bridge.
Keep in mind, by the nature of a bridge, the same data flows through both
interfaces, so you only need to filter on one interface. Your default "Pass
all" statements would look something like this:
pass in on ep0 all
pass out on ep0 all
pass in on fxp0 all
pass out on fxp0 all
Now, let's say I wish to filter traffic hitting these old machines, I want
only Web and SSH traffic to reach them. In this case, we are going to let all
traffic in and out of the ep0 interface, but filter on the fxp0 interface,
using keep state to handle the reply data:
# Pass all traffic through ep0
pass in quick on ep0 all
pass out quick on ep0 all
# Block fxp0 traffic
block in on fxp0 all
block out on fxp0 all
pass in quick on fxp0 proto tcp from any to any port {22, 80} \
flags S/SA keep state
Note that this rule set will prevent anything but incoming HTTP and SSH
traffic from reaching either the bridge machine or any of the other nodes
"behind" it. Other results could be had by filtering the other interface.
To monitor and control the bridge you have created, use the brconfig(8)
command, which can also be used to create a bridge after boot.
Tips on bridging
* It is HIGHLY recommended that you filter on only one interface. While it
is possible to filter on both, you really need to understand this very
well to do it right.
* By using the blocknonip option of brconfig(8) or in bridgename.bridge0,
you can prevent non-IP traffic (such as IPX or NETBEUI) from slipping
around your filters. This may be important in some situations, but you
should be aware that bridges work for all kinds of traffic, not just IP.
* Bridging requires that the NICs be in a "Promiscuous mode" -- they listen
to ALL network traffic, not just that directed at the interface. This will
put a higher load on the processor and bus than one might expect. Some
NICs don't work properly in this mode, the TI ThunderLAN chip (tl(4)) is
an example of a chip that won't work as part of a bridge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq6.html,v 1.184 2004/02/06 01:07:52 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
7 - Keyboard and Display Controls
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 7.1 - How do I remap the keyboard? (wscons)
* 7.2 - Is there gpm or the like in OpenBSD?
* 7.3 - How do I clear the console each time a user logs out?
* 7.4 - Accessing the console scrollback buffer. (i386, some Alpha)
* 7.5 - How do I switch consoles? (i386, some Alpha)
* 7.6 - How can I use a console resolution of 80x50? (i386)
* 7.7 - How do I use a serial console?
* 7.8 - How do I blank my console? (wscons)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1 - How do I remap the keyboard? (wscons)
The ports that use the wscons(4) console driver: alpha, hppa, i386, macppc,
sparc, and sparc64.
With wscons(4) consoles, most options can be controlled using the wsconsctl(8)
utility. For example, to change keymappings with wsconsctl(8) one would
execute the following:
# wsconsctl -w keyboard.encoding=uk
In the next example, we will remap "Caps Lock" to be "Control L":
# wsconsctl -w keyboard.map+="keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L"
7.2 - Is there gpm or the like in OpenBSD?
For the alpha and i386 platforms, OpenBSD provides wsmoused(8), a port of
FreeBSD's moused(8). It can be enabled automatically at startup by editing the
appropriate line in rc.conf(8).
7.3 - Clearing the console each time a user logs out.
To do this you must add a line in /etc/gettytab(5). Change the current
section:
P|Pc|Pc console:\
:np:sp#9600:
adding the line ":cl=\E[H\E[2J:" at the end, so that it ends up looking like
this:
P|Pc|Pc console:\
:np:sp#9600:\
:cl=\E[H\E[2J:
7.4 - Accessing the Console Scrollback Buffer (i386, some Alpha)
On some platforms, OpenBSD provides a console scrollback buffer. This allows
you to see information that has already scrolled past your screen. To move up
and down in the buffer, simply use the key combinations [SHIFT]+[PGUP] and
[SHIFT]+[PGDN].
The default scrollback buffer, or the number of pages that you can move up and
view, is 8. This is a feature of the vga(4) driver, so it will not work
without a VGA card on any platform (many Alpha systems have TGA video).
7.5 - How do I switch consoles? (i386, some Alpha)
On i386 and Alpha systems with vga(4) cards, OpenBSD provides six virtual
terminals by default, /dev/ttyC0 through /dev/ttyC5. ttyC4 is reserved for use
by the X Window system, leaving five text consoles. You can switch between
them using [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1], [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F2], [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F3], [CTRL]+
[ALT]+[F4] and [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F6].
The X environment uses ttyC4, [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F5]. When using X, the [CTRL]+
[ALT]+[Fn] keys will take you to the text screens; [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F5] will take
you back to the graphical environment.
If you wish to have more than the default number of virtual consoles, use the
wsconscfg(8) command to create screens for ttyC6, ttyC7 and above. For
example:
wsconscfg -t 80x25 6
will create a virtual terminal for ttyC6, accessed by [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F7]. Don't
forget to add this command to your rc.local(8) file if you want the extra
screen the next time you boot the computer.
Note that you will not get a "login:" prompt on the newly-created virtual
console unless you set it to "on" in /etc/ttys(5), and either reboot or send
init(8) a HUP signal using kill(1).
7.6 - How do I use a console resolution of 80x50? (i386)
i386 users normally get a console screen of 25 lines of 80 characters.
However, many VGA video cards are capable of displaying a higher text
resolution of 50 lines of 80 characters.
First, a font that supports the desired resolution must be loaded using the
wsfontload(8) command. The standard 80x25 text screen uses 8x16 pixel fonts;
to double the number of lines we will have to use 8x8 pixel fonts.
After that, we will have to delete and recreate a virtual console at the
desired screen resolution, using the wsconscfg(8) command.
This can be done automatically at boot by adding the following lines to the
end of your rc.local(8) file:
wsfontload -h 8 -e ibm /usr/share/misc/pcvtfonts/vt220l.808
wsconscfg -dF 5
wsconscfg -t 80x50 5
As with any modification to your system configuration, it is recommended you
spend some time with the man pages to understand what these commands do.
The first line above loads the 8x8 font. The second line deletes screen 5
(which would be accessed by [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F6]). The third line creates a new
screen 5 with 50 lines of 80 characters each. If you do this, you will see
your primary screen, and the other three default virtual consoles, come up in
the standard 80x25 mode, but a new screen 5 at 80x50 accessible through [CTRL]
+[ALT]+[F6].
Remember that [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1] is screen 0 (ttyC0). If you wish to alter
other screens, simply repeat the delete and add screen steps for whichever
screens you want running at the 80x50 resolution.
You should avoid changing screen 4 (ttyC4, [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F5]), which is used
by X as a graphical screen. It is also not possible to change the resolution
of the primary console device (i.e., ttyC0).
As one might expect, all these commands can also be entered at the command
prompt, as root, or (better) using sudo(8).
Note: this will not work on all video cards. Unfortunately, not all video
cards support the uploaded fonts that wscons(4) requires to achieve the 80x50
text mode. In these cases, you might wish to consider running X.
7.7 - How do I use a serial console?
There are many reasons you may wish to use a serial console for your OpenBSD
system:
* Recording console output (for documentation).
* Remote management.
* Easier maintenance of a large quantity of machines
* Providing a useful dmesg from machines which might otherwise be difficult
to get one from.
* Providing an accurate "trace" and "ps" output if your system crashes so
developers can have a chance to fix the problem.
OpenBSD supports serial console on most platforms, however details vary
greatly between platforms.
Note that serial interfacing is NOT a trivial task -- you will often need
unusual cables, and ports are not standardized between machines, in some
cases, not even consistent on one machine. It is assumed you know how to
select the appropriate cable to go between your computer and the device acting
as your serial terminal. A full tutorial on serial interfacing is beyond the
scope of this article, however, we offer one hint: just because the ends plug
in doesn't mean it will work.
/etc/ttys change
There are two parts to getting a functional serial console on an OpenBSD
system. First, you must have OpenBSD to use your serial port as a console for
status and single user mode. This part is very platform dependent. Second, you
must enable the serial port to be used as an interactive terminal, so a user
can log into it when running multi-user. This part is fairly similar between
platforms, and is detailed here.
Terminal sessions are controlled by the /etc/ttys file. Before OpenBSD will
give you a "login:" prompt at a device, it has to be enabled in /etc/ttys,
after all, there are other uses for a serial port other than for a terminal.
In platforms which typically have an attached keyboard and screen as a
console, the serial terminal is typically disabled by default. We'll use the
i386 platform as an example. In this case, you must edit the line that reads:
tty00 "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600" unknown off
to read:
tty00 "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600" vt100 on secure
Here, tty00 is the serial port we are using as a console. The "on" activates
the getty for that serial port so that a "login:" prompt will be presented,
the "secure" permits a root (uid 0) login at this console (which may or may
not be what you desire), and the "9600" is the terminal baud rate. Note that
you can use a serial console for install without doing this step, as the
system is running in single user mode, and not using getty for login.
On some platforms and some configurations, you must bring the system up in
single user mode to make this change if a serial console is all you have
available.
i386
To direct the boot process to use the serial port as a console, create or edit
your /etc/boot.conf file to include the line:
set tty com0
to use the first serial port as your console. The default baud rate is
9600bps, this can be changed with a /etc/boot.conf line using the stty option.
This file is put on your boot drive, which could also be your install floppy,
or the command can be entered at the boot> prompt from the OpenBSD
second-stage boot loader for a one-time (or first time) serial console usage.
i386 notes:
* OpenBSD numbers the serial ports starting at tty00, DOS/Windows labels
them starting at COM1. So, keep in mind tty02 is COM3, not COM2
* Some systems may be able to operate without a video card in the machine,
but certainly not all -- many systems consider this an error condition.
Some machines will even refuse to work easily without a keyboard attached.
* Some systems are capable of redirecting all BIOS keyboard and screen
activity to a serial port through a configuration option, so the machine
can be completely maintained through the serial port. Your results may
vary -- this port may not be available to the operating system once
booted, thus requiring monitoring using TWO serial ports.
* PC compatible computers are not designed to be run from a serial console,
unlike some other platforms. Even those systems that support a serial
console usually have it as a BIOS configuration option -- and should the
configuration information get corrupted, you will find the system looking
for a standard monitor and keyboard again. You generally must have some
way to get a monitor and keyboard to your i386 systems in an emergency.
* You will need to edit /etc/ttys as above.
* Only the first serial port (com0) is supported for console on i386.
SPARC and UltraSPARC
These machines are designed to be completely maintainable with a serial
console. Simply remove the keyboard from the machine, and the system will run
serial.
SPARC and UltraSPARC notes
* The serial ports on a SPARC are labeled ttya, ttyb, etc.
* Unlike some other platforms, it is not necessary to make any changes to /
etc/ttys to use a serial console.
* The SPARC/UltraSPARC systems interpret a BREAK signal on the console port
to be the same as a STOP-A command, and kicks the system back to the Forth
prompt, stopping any application and operating system at that point. This
is handy when desired, but unfortunately, some serial terminals at
power-down and some RS-232 switching devices send something the computer
interprets as a break signal, halting the machine. Test before you go into
production.
* If you have a keyboard and monitor attached, you can still force the
serial console to be used instead by using the following commands at the
ok prompt:
ok setenv input-device ttya
ok setenv output-device ttya
ok reset
If the keyboard and monitor (ttyC0) are active in /etc/ttys (above), you
can use the keyboard and monitor in X.
MacPPC
The MacPPC machines are configured for a serial console through OpenFirmware.
Use the commands:
ok setenv output-device scca
ok setenv input-device scca
ok reset-all
Set your serial console to 57600bps, 8N1.
MacPPC notes
* Unfortunately, serial console is not directly possible on most MacPPCs.
While most of these machines do have serial hardware, it isn't accessible
outside the machine. Fortunately, a few companies offer add-on devices for
several Macintosh models which will make this port available for use as a
serial console (or other uses). Use your favorite search engine and look
for "Macintosh internal serial port".
* You will have to change tty00 in /etc/ttys to on and set the speed to
57600 instead of the default of 9600 as detailed above in single user mode
before booting multi-user and having the serial console functional.
Mac68k
Serial console is selected in the Booter program, under the "Options"
pull-down menu, then "Serial Ports". Check the "Serial Console" button, then
choose the Modem or Printer port. You will need a Macintosh modem or printer
cable to attach to the Mac's serial ports. If you wish to have this as
default, tell the Booter program to save your options.
Mac68k Notes
* The modem port is tty00, the printer port is tty01.
* The Mac68k doesn't turn on its serial port until called upon, so your
breakout box may not show any signals on the Mac's serial port until the
OpenBSD boot process has started.
* You will have to enable the port (tty00 or tty01) as indicated above.
7.8 - How do I blank my console? (wscons)
If you wish to blank your console after a period of inactivity without using
X, you can alter the following wscons(4) variables:
* display.vblank set to on will disable the vertical sync pulse, which will
cause many monitors to go into an "energy saver" mode. This will require
more time to bring the screen back on, but will reduce energy consumption
and heat production of newer monitors. When set to off, the display will
blank, but the monitor will still be receiving the normal horizontal and
vertical sync pulses, so the unblanking will be almost instant.
* display.screen_off determines the blanking time in thousandths of a
second, i.e., 60000 would set the timeout to one minute.
* display.kbdact determines if keyboard activity will restore the blanked
screen. Usually, this is desirable.
* display.outact determines if screen output will restore the blanked
screen.
You can set these variables at the command line using the wsconsctl(8)
command:
# wsconsctl -w display.screen_off=60000
display.screen_off -> 60000
or set them permanently by editing /etc/wsconsctl.conf so these changes take
place at next boot:
display.vblank=on # enable vertical sync blank
display.screen_off=600000 # set screen blank timeout to 10 minutes
display.kbdact=on # Restore screen on keyboard input
display.outact=off # Restore screen on display output
The blanker is activated when either display.kbdact or display.outact is set
to "on".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq7.html,v 1.59 2004/04/01 04:16:38 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
8 - General Questions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 8.1 - I forgot my root password..... What do I do!
* 8.2 - X won't start, I get lots of error messages
* 8.3 - What is CVS, and how do I use it?
* 8.4 - What is the ports tree?
* 8.5 - What are packages?
* 8.6 - Should I use Ports or Packages?
* 8.8 - Is there any way to use my floppy drive if it's not attached during
boot?
* 8.9 - OpenBSD Bootloader (i386 specific)
* 8.10 - Using S/Key on your OpenBSD system
* 8.12 - Does OpenBSD support SMP?
* 8.13 - I sometimes get Input/output error when trying to use my tty
devices
* 8.14 - What web browsers are available for OpenBSD?
* 8.15 - How do I use the mg editor?
* 8.16 - ksh(1) does not appear to read my .profile!
* 8.17 - Why does my /etc/motd file get written over when I modified it?
* 8.18 - Why does www.openbsd.org run on Solaris?
* 8.19 - I'm having problems with PCI devices being detected
* 8.20 - Antialiased and TrueType fonts in XFree86
* 8.21 - Does OpenBSD support any journaling filesystems?
* 8.22 - Reverse DNS or Why is it taking so long for me to log in?
* 8.23 - Why do the OpenBSD web pages not conform to HTML4/XHTML?
* 8.24 - Why is my clock off by twenty-some seconds?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8.1 - I forgot my root password, what do I do now?
A few steps to recovery
1. Boot into single user mode. For i386 arch type boot -s at the boot prompt.
2. mount the drives.
# fsck -p / && mount -uw /
3. If /usr is not the same partition that / is (and it shouldn't be) then you
will need to mount it, also
# fsck -p /usr && mount /usr
4. run passwd(1)
5. boot into multiuser mode... and remember your password!
8.2 - X won't start, I get lots of error messages
If you have X completely set up and you are using an XF86Config that you know
works then the problem most likely lies in the machdep.allowaperture. You also
need to make sure that:
option APERTURE
is in your kernel configuration. [It is already in the GENERIC kernel]
Then you need to edit /etc/sysctl.conf and set machdep.allowaperture=2. This
will allow X to access the aperture driver. This would already be set if you
said that you would be running X when asked during the install. OpenBSD
requires for all X servers that the aperture driver be set, because it
controls access to the I/O ports on video boards.
For other X problems on the i386, consult the XFree86 Online Documentation at
http://www.xfree86.org/support.html.
8.3 - What is CVS? and How do I use it?
CVS is the tool that OpenBSD project uses to control changes to the source
code. CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System. You can read more about CVS
at http://www.cvshome.org/. CVS can be used by the end user to keep up to date
with source changes, and changes in the ports tree. CVS makes it extremely
simple to download the source via one of the many CVS mirrors for the project.
How to initially setup your CVS environment
You can retrieve the sources from one of the OpenBSD AnonCVS servers. These
servers are listed on http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html. Once you have
chosen a server you need to choose which module you are going to retrieve.
There are three main modules available for checkout from the CVS tree. These
are:
* src - The src module has the complete source code for OpenBSD. This
includes userland and kernel sources.
* ports - The ports module holds all you need to have the complete OpenBSD
ports tree. To read more on the OpenBSD ports tree, read FAQ 8, Ports of
the OpenBSD FAQ.
* XF4 - The XF4 module contains the source to compile XFree 4.
Now that you have decided which module that you wish to retrieve, there is one
more step left before you can retrieve it. You must decide which method to
use. CVS by default retrieves files using ssh(1), but some AnonCVS servers
allow for the use of rsh. For those of you behind a firewall there are also
the options of pserver and some AnonCVS servers run ssh on port 2022. Be sure
to check http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html for which servers support what
protocols. Next I will show how to do a simple source checkout. Here I will be
using an AnonCVS server located in the U.S., but remember that if you are
outside of the U.S you need to use a server that is located nearby. There are
many AnonCVS servers located throughout the world, so choose one nearest you.
I will also be using ssh to retrieve the files.
$ export CVSROOT=anoncvs@anoncvs.usa.openbsd.org:/cvs
$ cvs get src
Warning: Remote host denied X11 forwarding, perhaps xauth program could not be run on the server side.
cvs checkout: in directory src:
cvs checkout: cannot open CVS/Entries for reading: No such file or directory
cvs server: Updating src
U src/Makefile
[snip]
Notice here also that I set the CVSROOT environment variable. This is the
variable that tells cvs(1) which AnonCVS server to use. This can also be
specified using the -d option. For example:
$ cvs -d anoncvs@anoncvs.usa.openbsd.org:/cvs get src
These commands should be run in /usr, which will then create the directories
of /usr/src, /usr/ports, and /usr/www. Depending, of course, on which module
you checkout. You can download these modules to anywhere, but if you wanted to
do work with them (ie make build ), it is expected that they be at the place
above.
Keeping your CVS tree up-to-date
Once you have your initial tree setup, keeping it up-to-date is the easy part.
You can update your tree at any time you choose, some AnonCVS servers update
more often then others, so again check http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html. In
this example I will be updating my www module from anoncvs.usa.openbsd.org.
Notice the -q option that I use, this makes the output not so verbose coming
from the server.
$ echo $CVSROOT
anoncvs@anoncvs.usa.openbsd.org:/cvs
$ cvs -q up -Pd www
Warning: Remote host denied X11 forwarding, perhaps xauth program could not be run on the server side.
U www/want.html
M www/faq/faq8.html
ericj@oshibana:~>
Other cvs options
For some, bandwidth and time are serious problems when updating repositories
such as these. So CVS has a -z[1-9] option which uses gzip to compress the
data. To use it, do -z[compression-level], for instance, -z3 for a compression
level of 3.
8.4 - What is the ports tree?
The ports tree is a set of Makefiles that download, patch, configure and
install userland programs so you can run them in OpenBSD environment without
having to do all that by hand. You can get the ports tree from any of the
OpenBSD FTP servers in /pub/OpenBSD/3.4/ports.tar.gz. The most recent ports
are available via the 'ports' cvs tree, or /pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/
ports.tar.gz. For most of you however, packages will be a much better option.
Packages are created from ports and are already compiled and ready to use. To
read more on packages read FAQ 8, Packages.
Important note about keeping your system and ports in sync
OpenBSD has three "active" versions at any point in time:
* Release: What is on the CD.
* Stable: Release, plus security and reliability enhancements
* Current: The development version of OpenBSD.
DO NOT mix versions of Ports and OpenBSD!
If your system is Release, use the Release version of the ports tree. Don't
try to use a -Current version of the Ports tree on a -Release or -Stable
system. Not only is it not likely to work, you will irritate people when you
ask for help about why "nothing seems to work!" Note that there is a -Stable
branch of the Ports tree as well, where critical fixes to -Release ports will
be made.
Yes, this really does mean a wonderful new port will not typically work on
your "older" system -- even if that system was -current just a few weeks ago.
If you do not have the ports tree installed, you can download it via any of
OpenBSD's FTP servers, or of course, from the CD-ROM. The file is
ports.tar.gz, and you want to untar this in the /usr directory, which will
create /usr/ports, and all the directories under it. For example:
$ ftp ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.4/ports.tar.gz
$ sudo cp ports.tar.gz /usr
$ cd /usr; sudo tar xzf ports.tar.gz
A snapshot of the ports tree is also created daily and can be downloaded from
any of the OpenBSD FTP servers as /pub/OpenBSD/snapshots/ports.tar.gz. If you
are installing a snapshot of OpenBSD, you should use a matching snapshot of
ports. Again, make sure you keep your ports tree and your OpenBSD system in
sync.
What ports are available? How do i find them?
Use the ports tree to search for keywords. To do this use make search key=
"searchkey". Here is an example of a search for 'samba':
$ make search key="samba"
[...snip...]
Port: amanda-client-2.4.2.2
Path: misc/amanda,-client
Info: network-capable tape backup (client only)
Maint: Tom Schutter <t.schutter@att.net>
Index: misc
L-deps:
B-deps: :devel/gmake gnuplot-*:math/gnuplot gtar-*:archivers/gtar samba-*:net/samba/stable
R-deps:
Archs: any
Port: samba-2.2.8a
Path: net/samba/stable
Info: SMB and CIFS client and server for UNIX
Maint: The OpenBSD ports mailing-list <ports@openbsd.org>
Index: net
L-deps: popt::devel/popt
B-deps: :devel/autoconf/2.13 :devel/metaauto
R-deps:
Archs: any
[...snip...]
Installing Ports
Ports are set up to be EXTREMELY easy to make and install. Here is an example
showing how to install the X11 program xfig. You'll notice the dependencies
are automatically detected and completed.
First you need to cd to the dir of the program you want. If you are searching
for a program, you can either update your locate database, or use the search
function talked about above. Once you are in the dir of the program you want,
you can just type make install. For example.
$ sudo make install
===> Checking files for xfig-3.2.4
>> xfig.3.2.4.full.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system.
>> Attempting to fetch /usr/ports/distfiles/xfig.3.2.4.full.tar.gz from http://w
ww.xfig.org/xfigdist/.
100% |**************************************************| 5042 KB 00:31
>> Checksum OK for xfig.3.2.4.full.tar.gz. (sha1)
===> xfig-3.2.4 depends on: jpeg.62 - jpeg.62 missing...
===> Verifying install for jpeg.62 in graphics/jpeg
===> Checking files for jpeg-6b
>> jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system.
>> Attempting to fetch /usr/ports/distfiles/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz from ftp://ftp.uu
.net/graphics/jpeg/.
'EPSV': command not understood.
100% |**************************************************| 598 KB 00:06
>> Checksum OK for jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz. (sha1)
===> Extracting for jpeg-6b
===> Patching for jpeg-6b
===> Configuring for jpeg-6b
checking for gcc... cc
checking whether the C compiler (cc -O2 ) works... yes
checking whether the C compiler (cc -O2 ) is a cross-compiler... no
checking whether we are using GNU C... yes
[...snip...]
Using Flavors
Many of the applications in the ports tree support different install options,
called flavors. If a port comes in multiple flavors, you can use these options
simply by setting an environment variable before you compile the port. If
multiple features are needed, the FLAVOR variable can be set to a
space-delimited list of the supported and desired flavors. Currently, many
ports have flavors that include database support, support for systems without
X, or network additions like SSL and IPv6.
$ pwd
/usr/ports/net/mtr
$ make show=FLAVORS
no_x11
$ env FLAVOR="no_x11" make
===> mtr-0.49-no_x11 depends on: gmake-3.80 - not found
===> Verifying install for gmake-3.80 in devel/gmake
===> Checking files for gmake-3.80
>> make-3.80.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system.
>> Attempting to fetch /usr/ports/distfiles/make-3.80.tar.gz from ftp://ftp.gnu.
org/gnu/make/.
Unknown command.
100% |**************************************************| 1183 KB 00:07
>> Checksum OK for make-3.80.tar.gz. (sha1)
[...snip...]
$ sudo env FLAVOR="no_x11" make install
===> Faking installation for mtr-0.49-no_x11
[...snip...]
===> Building package for mtr-0.49-no_x11
Creating package /usr/ports/packages/i386/All/mtr-0.49-no_x11.tgz
Using SrcDir value of /usr/ports/net/mtr/w-mtr-0.49-no_x11/fake-i386-no_x11/usr/
local
Creating gzip'd tar ball in '/usr/ports/packages/i386/All/mtr-0.49-no_x11.tgz'
===> Installing mtr-0.49-no_x11 from /usr/ports/packages/i386/All/mtr-0.49-no_a
x11.tgz
Listing Installed ports/packages
You can see a list of both ports and packages by using the pkg_info command.
$ /usr/sbin/pkg_info
zsh-4.1.1 The Z shell.
screen-3.9.15 A multi-screen window manager.
emacs-21.3 GNU editing macros.
tcsh-6.12.00 An extended C-shell with many useful features.
bash-2.05b The GNU Borne Again Shell.
zip-2.3 Create/update ZIP files compatible with pkzip.
ircII-20030314 An enhanced version of ircII, the Internet Relay Chat client
ispell-3.2.06 An interactive spelling checker.
tin-1.6.1 TIN newsreader (termcap based)
procmail-3.22 A local mail delivery agent.
strobe-1.06 Fast scatter/gather TCP port scanner
lsof-4.68 Lists information about open files.
ntp-4.1.74 Network Time Protocol Implementation.
ncftp-3.1.5p0 ftp replacement with advanced user interface
nmh-1.0.4p1 The New MH mail handling program
bzip2-1.0.2 A block-sorting file compressor
Other Information
More information about the ports can be found in the ports(7) man page and on
the Ports page.
Our ports tree is constantly being expanded, and if you would like to help
please see: http://www.openbsd.org/porting.html.
8.5 - What are packages?
Packages are the precompiled binaries of some of the most used programs. They
are ready for use on an OpenBSD system. Again, like the ports, packages are
very easy to maintain and update. Packages are constantly being added so be
sure to check each release for additional packages.
Here is a list of tools used in managing packages.
* pkg_add(1) - a utility for installing software package distributions
* pkg_create(1) - a utility for creating software package distributions
* pkg_delete(1) - a utility for deleting previously installed software
package distributions
* pkg_info(1) - a utility for displaying information on software packages
Where to find packages
If you are a smart user and bought an OpenBSD CD set, then packages can be
found on one of the three CDs, depending on your architecture. If you don't
have an OpenBSD CD in your possession you can download packages from any of
the ftp mirrors. You can get a list of mirrors http://www.openbsd.org/
ftp.html. Packages are located at /pub/OpenBSD/3.4/packages from there
packages are broken down depending on architecture.
Installing Packages
To install packages, the utility pkg_add(1) is used. pkg_add(1) is an
extremely easy utility to use, in the following two examples pkg_add(1) will
be used to install a package. The first example will show pkg_add(1)
installing a package that resides on a local disk, the second example will
show an installation of a package via ftp. In both examples screen-3.9.15 will
be installed.
Installing via local disk
$ sudo pkg_add -v screen-3.9.15.tgz
Requested space: 749864 bytes, free space: 2239117312 bytes in /var/tmp/instmp.cpsHA27596
Running install with PRE-INSTALL for `screen-3.9.15'
extract: Package name is screen-3.9.15
extract: CWD to /usr/local
extract: /usr/local/bin/screen-3.9.15
extract: execute 'ln -sf screen-3.9.15 /usr/local/bin/screen'
extract: /usr/local/man/man1/screen.1
extract: /usr/local/info/screen.info
extract: execute '[ -f /usr/local/info/dir ] || sed -ne '1,/Menu:/p' /usr/share/info/dir > /usr/local/info/dir'
extract: execute 'install-info /usr/local/info/screen.info /usr/local/info/dir'
extract: /usr/local/lib/screen/screencap
extract: /usr/local/lib/screen/screenrc
extract: CWD to .
Running mtree for `screen-3.9.15'
mtree -q -U -f +MTREE_DIRS -d -e -p /usr/local
Running install with POST-INSTALL for `screen-3.9.15'
+---------------
| The file /etc/screenrc has been created on your system.
| You may want to verify/edit its contents
|
| The file /usr/local/lib/screen/screencap contains a
| termcap like description of the screen virtual terminal.
| You may use it to update your terminal database.
| See termcap(5).
+---------------
Attempting to record package into `/var/db/pkg/screen
Package `screen-3.9.15' registered in `/var/db/pkg/screen-3.9.15'
In this example the -v flag was used to give a more verbose output. This
option is not needed but is helpful for debugging and was used here to give a
little more insight into what pkg_add(1) is actually doing. Notice however,
that there are some valid messages given out mentioning /etc/screenrc.
Messages like this will be given to you whether or not you use the -v flag.
Installing via ftp
$ sudo pkg_add ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.4/packages/i386/screen-3.9.15.tgz
>>> ftp -o - ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/3.4/packages/i386/screen-3.9.15.tgz
+---------------
| The file /etc/screenrc has been created on your system.
| You may want to verify/edit its contents
|
| The file /usr/local/lib/screen/screencap contains a
| termcap like description of the screen virtual terminal.
| You may use it to update your terminal database.
| See termcap(5).
+---------------
In this example you can see that I installed the i386 package. You should
substitute i386 (above) with your architecture. Notice: Not all architectures
have the same packages. Some ports don't work on certain architectures. In
this example the -v flag wasn't used, so only NEEDED messages are shown.
Viewing and Deleting Installed Packages
The utility pkg_info(1) is used to view a list of packages that are already
installed on your system. This is usually needed to find out the correct name
of a package before you remove that package. To see what packages are
installed on your system simple use:
$ pkg_info
mpg123-0.59rp1 mpeg audio 1/2 layer 1, 2 and 3 player
nmap-3.00 port scanning large networks
ircII-20030314 enhanced version of ircII (internet relay chat)
screen-3.9.15 multi-screen window manager
unzip-5.50r2 extract, list & test files in a ZIP archive
ntp-4.1.74 Network Time Protocol implementation
icb-5.0.9p1 Internet CB - mostly-defunct chat client
To delete a package, simple take the proper name of the package as shown by
pkg_info(1) and use pkg_delete(1) to remove the package. In the below example,
the screen package is being removed. Notice that on some occasions there are
instructions of extra objects that need to be removed that pkg_delete(1) did
not remove for you. As with the pkg_add(1) utility, you can use the -v flag to
get more verbose output.
$ sudo pkg_delete screen-3.9.15
+---------------
| To completely deinstall the screen-3.9.15 package you need to perform
| this step as root:
|
| rm -f /etc/screenrc
|
| Do not do this if you plan on re-installing screen-3.9.15
| at some future time.
+---------------
8.6 - Should I use Ports or Packages?
In general, you are HIGHLY advised to use packages over building an
application from ports. The OpenBSD ports team considers packages to be the
goal of their porting work, not the ports themselves.
Building a complex application from source is not trivial. Not only must the
application be compiled, but the tools used to build it must be built.
Unfortunately, OpenBSD, the tools, and the application are all evolving, and
often, getting all the pieces working together is a challenge. Once everything
works, a revision in any of the pieces the next day could render it broken.
Every six months, as a new release of OpenBSD is made, an effort is made to
test the building of every port on every platform, but during the development
cycle it is likely that some ports will break.
In addition to having all the pieces work together, there is just the matter
of time and resources required to compile some applications from source. A
common example is CVSup, a tool commonly used to track the OpenBSD source
tree. To install CVSup on a moderately fast system with a good Internet
connection may take only about ten seconds -- the time required to download
and unpack a single 511kB package file. In contrast, building CVSup on the
same machine from source is a huge task, requiring many tools and
bootstrapping a compiler, takes almost half an hour on the same machine. Other
applications, such as Mozilla or KDE may take hours and huge amounts of disk
space and RAM/swap to build. Why go through this much time and effort, when
the programs are already compiled and sitting on your CD-ROM or FTP mirror,
waiting to be used?
Of course, there are a few good reasons to use ports over packages in some
cases:
* Distribution rules prohibit OpenBSD from distributing a package.
* You wish to modify or debug the application or study its source code.
* You need a FLAVOR of a port that is not built by the OpenBSD ports team.
* You wish to alter the directory layout (i.e., modifying PREFIX or
SYSCONFDIR)
However, for most people and most applications, using packages is a far
easier, and is the recommended way of adding applications to OpenBSD.
8.8 - Is there any way to use my floppy drive if it's not attached during
boot?
You need to set the kernel to always assume the floppy is attached, even if
not detected during the hardware probe, by setting the 0x20 flag bit on fdc
(4). This can be done by using User Kernel Config or config(8) to alter your
kernel,
# config -e -f /bsd
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MST 2003
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
Enter 'help' for information
ukc> change fd*
204 fd* at fdc0 drive -1 flags 0x0
change [n] y
drive [-1] ? ENTER
flags [0] ? 0x20
204 fd* changed
204 fd* at fdc0 drive -1 flags 0x20
ukc> q
Saving modified kernel.
#
You can also change this by adding "flags 0x20" at the end of the fd* entry in
your Kernel Configuration file recompile your kernel. The line should read:
fd* at fdc? drive ? flags 0x20
8.9 - OpenBSD Bootloader (i386 specific)
When booting your OpenBSD system, you have probably noticed the boot prompt.
boot>
For most people, you won't have to do anything here. It will automatically
boot if no commands are given. But sometimes problems arise, or special
functions are needed. That's where these options will come in handy. To start
off, you should read through the boot(8) man page. Here we will go over the
most common used commands for the bootloader.
To start off, if no commands are issued, the bootloader will automatically try
to boot /bsd. If that fails it will try /obsd, and if that fails, it will try
/bsd.old. You can specify a kernel by hand by typing:
boot> boot hd0a:/bsd
or
boot> b /bsd
This will boot the kernel named bsd from the 'a' partition of the first BIOS
recognized hard disk.
Here is a brief list of options you can use with the OpenBSD kernel.
* -a : This will allow you to specify an alternate root device after booting
the kernel.
* -c : This allows you to enter the boot time configuration. Check the Boot
Time Config section of the faq.
* -s : This is the option to boot into single user mode.
* -d : This option is used to dump the kernel into ddb. Keep in mind that
you must have DDB built into the kernel.
These are entered in the format of: boot [ image [-acds]]
For further reading you can read boot(8)'s man page.
8.10 - S/Key
S/Key is a ``one-time password'' scheme. This allows for one-time passwords
for use on un-secured channels. This can come in handy for those who don't
have the ability to use ssh or any other encrypted channels. OpenBSD's S/Key
implementation can use a variety of algorithms as the one-way hash. The
following algorithms are available:
* md4
* md5
* sha1
* rmd160.
Setting up S/Key - The first steps
To start off the directory /etc/skey must exist. If this directory is not in
existence, have the super-user create it. This can be done simply by doing:
# mkdir /etc/skey
Once that directory is in existence, you can initialize your S/Key. To do this
you will have to use skeyinit(1). With skeyinit(1), you will first be prompted
for your password to the system. This is the same password that you used to
log into the system. Running skeyinit(1) over an insecure channel is
completely not recommended, so this should be done over a secure channel (such
as ssh) or the console. Once you have authorized yourself with your system
password you will be asked for yet another password. This password is the S/
Key secret password, and is NOT your system password. Your secret password
must be at least 10 characters. We suggest using a memorable phrase containing
several words as the secret password. Here is an example user being added.
$ skeyinit ericj
[Adding ericj]
Reminder - Only use this method if you are directly connected
or have an encrypted channel. If you are using telnet
or rlogin, exit with no password and use skeyinit -s.
Enter secret password:
Again secret password:
ID ericj skey is otp-md5 99 oshi45820
Next login password: HAUL BUS JAKE DING HOT HOG
One line of particular importance in here is ID ericj skey is otp-md5 99
oshi45820. This gives a lot of information to the user. Here is a breakdown of
the sections and their importance.
* otp-md5 - This shows which one-way was used to create your One-Time
Password (otp).
* 99 - This is your sequence number. This is a number from 100 down to 1.
Once it reaches one, another secret password must be created.
* oshi45820 - This is your key.
But of more immediate importance is your password. Your password consists of 6
small words, combined together this is your password, spaces and all.
Actually using S/Key to login.
By now your skey has been initialized, and you have your password. You're
ready to login. Here is an example session using S/Key to login. Starting with
OpenBSD 3.0, S/Key logins work differently. For OpenBSD 3.0 and above you
append :skey to your login name. For versions of OpenBSD previous to 3.0 you
use s/key for the password at which time you are prompted for your S/Key
password (the exception to this is ftpd(8) which will always present an S/Key
challenge for S/Key-enabled user prior to OpenBSD < 3.0). The examples below
assume OpenBSD 3.0 or higher.
$ ftp localhost
Connected to localhost.
220 oshibana.shin.ms FTP server (Version 6.5/OpenBSD) ready.
Name (localhost:ericj): ericj:skey
331- otp-md5 96 oshi45820
331 S/Key Password:
230- OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MDT 2003
230-
230- Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.
230-
230- Please use the sendbug(1) utility to report bugs in the system.
230- Before reporting a bug, please try to reproduce it with the latest
230- version of the code. With bug reports, please try to ensure that
230- enough information to reproduce the problem is enclosed, and if a
230- known fix for it exists, include that as well.
230-
230 User ericj logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
Note that I appended ":skey" to my username. This tells ftpd that I want to
authenticate using S/Key. Some of you might have noticed that my sequence
number has changed to otp-md5 96 oshi45820. This is because by now I have used
S/Key to login several times. But how do you get your password after you've
logged in once? Well to do this, you'll need to know what sequence number
you're using and your key. As you're probably thinking, how can you remember
which sequence number you're on? Well this is simple, use skeyinfo(1), and it
will tell you what to use. For example here, I need to generate another
password for a login that I might have to make in the future. (remember I'm
doing this from a secure channel).
$ skeyinfo
95 oshi45820
An even better way is to use skeyinfo -v, which outputs a command suitable to
be run in the shell. For instance:
$ skeyinfo -v
otp-md5 95 oshi45820
Not only is otp-md5 a description of the hash used, it is also an alternate
name for the skey(1) command. So, the simplest way to generate the next S/Key
password is simply:
$ `skeyinfo -v`
Reminder - Do not use this program while logged in via telnet or rlogin.
Enter secret password:
NOOK CHUB HOYT SAC DOLE FUME
Note the backticks in the above example.
I'm sure many of you won't always have a secure connection to create these
passwords, and creating them over an insecure connection isn't feasible, so
how can you create multiple passwords at one time? Well you can supply skey(1)
with a number of how many passwords you want created. This can then be printed
out and taken with you wherever you go.
$ otp-md5 -n 5 95 oshi45820
Reminder - Do not use this program while logged in via telnet or rlogin.
Enter secret password:
91: SHIM SET LEST HANS SMUG BOOT
92: SUE ARTY YAW SEED KURD BAND
93: JOEY SOOT PHI KYLE CURT REEK
94: WIRE BOGY MESS JUDE RUNT ADD
95: NOOK CHUB HOYT SAC DOLE FUME
Notice here though, that the bottom password should be the first used, because
we are counting down from 100.
Using S/Key with telnet(1), ssh(1), and rlogin(1)
Using S/Key with telnet(1), ssh(1), or rlogin(1) is done in pretty much the
same fashion as with ftp--you simply tack ":skey" to the end of your username.
Example:
$ telnet localhost
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
OpenBSD/i386 (oshibana) (ttyp2)
login: ericj:skey
otp-md5 98 oshi45821
S/Key Password: SCAN OLGA BING PUB REEL COCA
Last login: Thu Oct 7 12:21:48 on ttyp1 from 156.63.248.77
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MDT 2003
Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.
Please use the sendbug(1) utility to report bugs in the system.
Before reporting a bug, please try to reproduce it with the latest
version of the code. With bug reports, please try to ensure that
enough information to reproduce the problem is enclosed, and if a
known fix for it exists, include that as well.
You have mail.
$
8.12 - Does OpenBSD support SMP?
(Symmetric Multi-Processor)
Not at this time. Work is on-going, there is an OpenBSD SMP project, though
there is nothing usable yet, nor is there any time schedule for OpenBSD SMP
support.
On most platforms, OpenBSD will run on an SMP system, but only utilizing one
processor. The exception to this is the SPARC platform -- OpenBSD/sparc will
sometimes require that extra MBus modules be removed for the system to boot.
Multi-processor SPARC64 systems run as long as the base machine is supported.
How can I help?
* Write code. There is lots of work to do.
* Donate hardware. The goal of the OpenBSD SMP project is to support as many
platforms as possible, including SPARC, SPARC64, Alpha, MacPPC and of
course, the i386. Donations of desired hardware are welcome!
* Don't offer to "test". The SMP project is not part of the core OpenBSD
project right now for a reason -- it isn't ready for production use yet,
or even general "testing". Informing the developers that it didn't work on
your hardware without code to make it work isn't useful at this point.
Send in your dmesg, if a developer sees something interesting in your
hardware, they can contact you for testing.
8.13 - I get Input/output error when trying to use my tty devices
You need to use /dev/cuaXX for connections initiated from the OpenBSD system,
the /dev/ttyXX devices are intended only for terminal or dial-in usage. While
it was possible to use the tty devices in the past, the OpenBSD kernel is no
longer compatible with this usage.
From cua(4):
For hardware terminal ports, dial-out is supported through matching device
nodes called calling units. For instance, the terminal called /dev/tty03 would
have a matching calling unit called /dev/cua03. These two devices are normally
differentiated by creating the calling unit device node with a minor number
128 greater than the dial-in device node. Whereas the dial-in device (the tty)
normally requires a hardware signal to indicate to the system that it is
active, the dial-out device (the cua) does not, and hence can communicate
unimpeded with a device such as a modem. This means that a process like getty
(8) will wait on a dial-in device until a connection is established.
Meanwhile, a dial-out connection can be established on the dial-out device
(for the very same hardware terminal port) without disturbing anything else on
the system. The getty(8) process does not even notice that anything is
happening on the terminal port. If a connecting call comes in after the
dial-out connection has finished, the getty(8) process will deal with it
properly, without having noticed the intervening dial-out action.
8.14 - What web browsers are available for OpenBSD?
Lynx, a text-based browser, is in the base system, and has SSL support. Other
browsers in the ports tree, include (in no particular order):
Graphical (X) Browsers
* Dillo Minimal feature set, very fast and small, runs well on slower
hardware.
* Konqueror Installed as part of the KDE desktop environment.
* Konqueror-embedded (konq-e) Konqueror, using only the KDE libraries rather
than all of KDE.
* Netscape 4 For sparc and i386 only, not Open Source, no package available.
* Opera Commercial browser, i386 only.
* Amaya The W3C's browser and editor.
* Links+ Another fast and small graphical browser. (Also has a text-only
mode)
* (new for 3.4) Mozilla and Firebird Feature-filled browsers. Mozilla
includes a many non-browser features (mail client, IRC client, etc.),
Firebird is just a browser, based on Mozilla. Works on alpha, i386, sparc,
and sparc64 platforms.
Console (Text mode) Browsers
* links Has table support.
You will find all these in the ports collection. All the above mentioned
browsers are located in /usr/ports/www/ after the installation of the ports
tree. Most are also available as pre-compiled packages, available on the FTP
servers and on the CD-ROM. As most of the graphical browsers are very large
and require quite some time to download and compile, one should seriously
consider the use of packages where available.
Unfortunately, due to a bug in one of the libraries used by w3m, it does not
work on 3.4-release on any platform.
8.15 - How do I use the mg editor?
Mg is a micro Emacs-style text editor included in OpenBSD. Micro means that
it's small (Emacs is very large!) For the basics, read the mg(1) manual page
and the tutorial, as included with the source code. For more interesting
questions (such as, "I don't have a Meta key!") check out the Emacs FAQ.
Note that since mg is a small Emacs implementation, which is mostly similar to
the text editor features of Emacs 17, it does not implement many of Emacs'
other functionality. (Including mail and news functionality, as well as modes
for Lisp, C++, Lex, Awk, Java, etc...)
8.16 - ksh(1) does not appear to read my .profile!
There are two likely reasons for ksh(1) to seemingly ignore a user's .profile
file.
* .profile is not owned by the user. To fix for username,
# chown username ~username/.profile
* You are using ksh(1) from within X Window System
Under xterm(1), argv[0] for ksh(1) is not prepended with a dash ("-").
Prepending a dash to argv[0] will cause csh(1) and ksh(1) to know they
should interpret their login files. (For csh(1) that's .login, with a
separate .cshrc that is always run when csh(1) starts up. With ksh(1),
this is more noticeable because there is only one startup script,
.profile. This file is ignored unless the shell is a login shell.)
To fix this, add the line "XTerm*loginShell: true" to the file .Xdefaults
in your home directory. Note, this file does not exist by default, you may
have to create it.
$ echo "XTerm*loginShell: true" >> ~/.Xdefaults
You may not have had to do this on other systems, as some installations of
X Window System come with this setting as default. OpenBSD has chosen to
follow the XFree86 behavior.
8.17 - Why does my /etc/motd file get overwritten when I modified it?
The /etc/motd file is edited upon every boot of the system, replacing
everything up to, but not including, the first blank line with the system's
kernel version information. When editing this file, make sure that you start
after this blank line, to keep /etc/rc from deleting these lines when it edits
/etc/motd upon boot.
8.18 - Why does www.openbsd.org run on Solaris?
Although none of the developers think it is particularly relevant, this
question comes up frequently enough in the mailing lists that it is answered
here. www.openbsd.org and the main OpenBSD ftp site are hosted at a SunSITE at
the University of Alberta, Canada. These sites are hosted on a large Sun
system, which has access to lots of storage space and Internet bandwidth. The
presence of the SunSITE gives the OpenBSD group access to this bandwidth. This
is why the main site runs here. Many of the OpenBSD mirror sites run OpenBSD,
but since they do not have guaranteed access to this large amount of
bandwidth, the group has chosen to run the main site at the University of
Alberta SunSITE.
8.19 - I'm having problems with my PCI devices being detected
There exists a condition where some machines might not detect some PCI devices
properly, or might freeze while detecting multiple NIC's in one machine. This
is the fault of PCIBIOS, and involves a simple workaround to make it work
properly. Simply enter the boot time configuration and disable PCIBIOS. An
example is below:
boot> boot -c
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2002 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MDT 2003
deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/RAMDISK_CD
cpu0: Intel Pentium III (Coppermine) ("GenuineIntel" 686-class, 128KB L2 cache)
1 GHz
cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SYS,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXS
R,SIMD
real mem = 267956224 (261676K)
avail mem = 243347456 (237644K)
using 3296 buffers containing 13500416 bytes (13184K) of memory
User Kernel Config
UKC> disable pcibios
UKC> quit
[... snip ...]
Once this is done, you can follow the directions in FAQ 5, Building a Kernel
to create a new kernel so that you don't have to worry about this in the
future.
8.20 - Antialiased and TrueType fonts in XFree86
See this document.
8.21 - Does OpenBSD support any journaling filesystems?
No it doesn't. We use a different mechanism to achieve similar results that is
called Soft Updates. Please read in FAQ 14 to get more details.
8.22 - Reverse DNS
- or -
Why is it taking so long for me to log in?
Many new users to OpenBSD experience a two minute login delay when using
services such as ssh, ftp, or telnet. This can also be experienced when using
a proxy, such as ftp-proxy, or when sending mail out from a workstation
through sendmail.
This is almost always due to a reverse-DNS problem. DNS is Domain Name
Services, the system the Internet uses to convert a name, such as
"www.openbsd.org" into a numeric IP address. Another task of DNS is the
ability to take a numeric address and convert it back to a "name", this is
"Reverse DNS".
In order to provide better logging, OpenBSD performs a reverse-DNS lookup on
any machine that attaches to it in many different ways, including ssh, ftp,
telnet, sendmail or ftp-proxy. Unfortunately, in some cases, the machine that
is making the connection does not have a proper reverse DNS entry.
An example of this situation:
A user sets up an OpenBSD box as a firewall and gateway to their internal home
network, mapping all their internal computers to one external IP using NAT.
They may also use it as an outbound mail relay. They follow the installation
guidelines, and are very happy with the results, except for one thing -- every
time they try to attach to the box in any way, they end up with a two minute
delay before things happen.
What is going on:
From a workstation behind the NAT of the gateway with an unregistered IP
address of 192.168.1.35, the user uses ssh to access the gateway system. The
ssh client prompts for username and password, and sends them to the gateway
box. The gateway then tries to figure out who is trying to log in by
performing a reverse DNS lookup of 192.168.1.35. The problem is 192.168.0.0
addresses are for private use, so a properly configured DNS server outside
your network knows it should have no information about those addresses. Some
will quickly return an error message, in these cases, OpenBSD will assume
there is no more information to be gained, and it will quickly give up and
just admit the user. Other DNS servers will not return ANY response. In this
case you will find yourself waiting for the OpenBSD name resolver to time out,
which takes about two minutes before the login will be permitted to continue.
In the case of ftp-proxy, some ftp clients will timeout before the reverse DNS
query times out, leading to the impression that ftp-proxy isn't working.
This can be quite annoying. Fortunately, it is an easy thing to fix.
Fix, using /etc/hosts:
The simplest fix is to populate your /etc/hosts file with all the workstations
you have in your internal network, and ensure that your /etc/resolv.conf file
contains the line lookup file bind which ensures that the resolver knows to
start with the /etc/hosts file, and failing that, to use the DNS servers
specified by the "nameserver" lines in your /etc/resolv.conf file.
Your /etc/hosts file will look something like this:
::1 localhost.in.example.org localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost.in.example.org localhost
192.168.1.1 gw.in.example.org gw
192.168.1.20 scrappy.in.example.org scrappy
192.168.1.35 shadow.in.example.org shadow
Your resolv.conf file will look something like this:
search in.example.org
nameserver 24.2.68.33
nameserver 24.2.68.34
lookup file bind
A common objection to this is "But, I use DHCP for my internal network! How
can I configure my /etc/hosts?" Rather easily, actually. Just enter lines for
all the addresses your DHCP server is going to give out, plus any static
devices:
::1 localhost.in.example.org localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost.in.example.org localhost
192.168.1.1 gw.in.example.org gw
192.168.1.20 scrappy.in.example.org scrappy
192.168.1.35 shadow.in.example.org shadow
192.168.1.100 d100.in.example.org d100
192.168.1.101 d101.in.example.org d101
192.168.1.102 d102.in.example.org d102
[... snip ...]
192.168.1.198 d198.in.example.org d198
192.168.1.199 d199.in.example.org d199
In this case, I am assuming you have the DHCP range set to 192.168.1.100
through 192.168.1.199, plus the three static definitions as listed at the top
of the file.
If your gateway must use DHCP for configuration, you may well find you have a
problem -- dhclient will overwrite your /etc/resolv.conf every time the lease
is renewed, which will remove the "lookup file bind" line. This can be solved
by putting the line "lookup file bind" in the file /etc/resolv.conf.tail.
Fix, using a local DNS server
Details on this are somewhat beyond the scope of this document, but the basic
trick is to setup your favorite DNS server, and make sure it knows it is
authoritative for both forward and reverse DNS resolution for all nodes in
your network, and make sure your computers (including your gateway) know to
use it as a DNS server.
8.23 - Why do the OpenBSD web pages not conform to HTML4/XHTML?
The present web pages have been carefully crafted to work on a wide variety of
actual browsers going back to browser versions 4.0 and later. We do not want
to make these older pages conform to HTML4 or XHTML until we're sure that they
will also work with older browsers; it's just not a priority. We welcome new
contributors, but suggest you work on writing code, or on documenting new
aspects of the system, not on tweaking the existing web pages to conform to
newer standards.
8.24 - Why is my clock off by twenty-some seconds?
When using rdate(8) to synchronize your clock to a NTP server, you may find
your clock is off by twenty-some seconds from your local definition of time.
This is caused by a difference between the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time,
based on astronomical observations) time and TAI (International Atomic Time,
based on atomic clocks) time. To compensate for variations in the earth's
rotation, "leap seconds" are inserted into UTC, but TAI is unadjusted. These
leap seconds are the cause of this discrepancy. For a more detailed
description, search the web for "leap seconds UTC TAI".
Addressing the problem is fairly simple. In most countries you will get the
correct time if you use the "-c" parameter to rdate(8) and use a time zone out
of the directory /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/. For example, if you are located
in Germany, you could use these commands:
# cd /etc && ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/right/CET localtime
# rdate -ncv ptbtime1.ptb.de
In other countries, the rules may differ.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq8.html,v 1.143 2004/04/27 13:33:27 tom Exp $
==============================================================================
9 - Migrating from Linux
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 9.1 - Tips for Linux (and other free Unix-like OS) users
* 9.2 - Dual boot of Linux and OpenBSD
* 9.3 - Converting your Linux (or other System-7 style) password file to
BSD-style.
* 9.4 - Running Linux binaries on OpenBSD
* 9.5 - Accessing your Linux files from OpenBSD
For more information for Linux users, please refer to http://sites.inka.de/
mips/unix/bsdlinux.html.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9.1 - Simple tips for Linux (and other free Unix-like OS) users
There are several differences between OpenBSD and Linux. These differences
include but are not limited to, bootup procedure, network interface usage and
disk management. Most differences are well documented, but involve searching
manpages. This document tries to be an index of those differences.
* OpenBSD has a ports tree. This is to accommodate the fact that at this
point not many applications are native to the OpenBSD environment. This is
both an attempt to get applications to work on OpenBSD for end-users and
to get more applications made with OpenBSD in mind. Eventually this ports
tree is used to make a nice set of binary packages.
* OpenBSD uses CVS for source changes. With Linux, source code is
disseminated through separate distributions. OpenBSD pioneered anonymous
CVS, which allows anyone to extract the full source tree for any version
of OpenBSD (from 2.0 to current, and all revisions of all files in
between) at any time! There is also a very convenient and easy to use web
interface to CVS.
* OpenBSD periodically releases snapshots for various architectures and
makes a stable, official CD release every 6 months.
* OpenBSD contains STRONG CRYPTO, which USA based OS's can't contain. (See
http://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html) OpenBSD has also gone through heavy
security auditing and many security features have already been implemented
into the source tree. (IPSEC, KERBEROS).
* OpenBSD's kernel is /bsd.
* The names of hard disks are usually /dev/wd (IDE) and /dev/sd (SCSI or ATA
devices emulating SCSI disks)
* /sbin/ifconfig with no arguments in Linux gives the state of all the
interfaces. Under OpenBSD you need the -a flag.
* /sbin/route with no arguments in Linux gives the state of all the active
routes. Under OpenBSD you need the "show" parameter, or do a netstat -r
(nice).
* OpenBSD does NOT support Journaling Filesystems like ReiserFS, IBMs JFS or
SGIs XFS. Instead we use Soft Updates.
* OpenBSD comes with Packet Filter (PF), not ipfw, ipchains, netfilter,
iptables, or ipf. This means that:
+ Network Address Translation (known as IP-Masquerading in Linux) is
done through pfctl (using -N). (pfctl(8))
+ ipfwadm is done through pfctl. (pfctl(8), pf(4), pf.conf(5))
+ You should look at PF User's Guide for detailed configuration
assistance and information.
* Interface address is stored in /etc/hostname.<interfacename>. It can be a
hostname instead of an IP address.
* The machine name is in /etc/myname
* The default gateway is in /etc/mygate
* OpenBSD's default shell is /bin/sh, which is the Korn shell. Shells such
as bash and tcsh can be added as packages or installed from the ports
tree.
* Password management changes a lot. The main files are different. (passwd
(1), passwd(5))
* Devices are named by driver, not by type. For example, there are no eth*
devices. It would be ne0 for an ne2000 ethernet card, and xl0 for a 3Com
Etherlink XL and Fast Etherlink XL ethernet device, etc.
* OpenBSD developers have made serious efforts to keep the manual pages
up-to-date and accurate. Use the man(1) command to find information.
9.2 - Dual booting Linux and OpenBSD
Yes! It is possible!
Read INSTALL.linux.
9.3 - Converting your Linux (or other System 7-style) password file to
BSD-style
First, figure out if your Linux password file is shadowed or not. If it is,
grab John the Ripper and use the unshadow utility that comes with it to merge
your passwd and shadow files into one System 7-style file.
Using your Linux password file, we'll call it linux_passwd, you need to add in
::0:0 between fields four and seven. awk(1) does this for you.
# cat linux_passwd | awk -F : '{printf("%s:%s:%s:%s::0:0:%s:%s:%s\n", \
> $1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7); }' > new_passwd
At this point, you want to edit the new_passwd file and remove the root and
other system entries that are already present in your OpenBSD password file or
aren't applicable with OpenBSD (all of them). Also, make sure there are no
duplicate usernames or user IDs between new_passwd and your OpenBSD box's /etc
/passwd. The easiest way to do this is to start with a fresh /etc/passwd.
# cat new_passwd >> /etc/master.passwd
# pwd_mkdb -p /etc/master.passwd
The last step, pwd_mkdb is necessary to rebuild the /etc/spwd.db and /etc/
pwd.db files. It also creates a System 7-style password file (minus encrypted
passwords) at /etc/passwd for programs which use it. OpenBSD uses a stronger
encryption for passwords, blowfish, which is very unlikely to be found on any
system which uses full System 7-style password files. To switch over to this
stronger encryption, simply have the users run 'passwd' and change their
password. The new password they enter will be encrypted with your default
setting (usually blowfish unless you've edited /etc/login.conf). Or, as root,
you can run passwd username.
9.4 - Running Linux binaries on OpenBSD
OpenBSD/i386 is able to run Linux binaries when the kernel is compiled with
the COMPAT_LINUX option and the runtime sysctl kern.emul.linux is also set. If
you are using the GENERIC kernel (which you should be), COMPAT_LINUX is
already enabled, and you will just need to do:
# sysctl -w kern.emul.linux=1
For this to be done automatically each time the computer boots, remove the #
(comment) character at the beginning of the line
#kern.emul.linux=1 # enable running Linux binaries
in /etc/sysctl.conf, so that it reads
kern.emul.linux=1 # enable running Linux binaries
and reboot your system to have it take effect.
To run any Linux binaries that are not statically linked (most of them), you
need to follow the instructions on the compat_linux(8) manual page.
A simple way to get most of the useful Linux libraries is to install the
redhat/base port from your ports collection. To find out more about the ports
collection read FAQ 8 - Ports. Once you have the ports tree installed, use
these commands to get the Linux libraries installed:
# cd /usr/ports/emulators/redhat/base
# make install
9.5 - Accessing your Linux files from OpenBSD
OpenBSD supports the EXT2FS file system. Use
# disklabel disk
(where disk is the device name of your disk, e.g. wd0) to see what OpenBSD
thinks your Linux partition is. However, don't use disklabel (8) or fdisk (8)
to make any changes to the disklabel.
For further information on using disklabel read FAQ 14 - Disklabel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq9.html,v 1.58 2004/02/10 04:18:12 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
10 - System Management
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 10.1 - When I try to su to root it says that I'm in the wrong group.
* 10.2 - How do I duplicate a filesystem?
* 10.3 - How do I start daemons with the system? (Overview of rc(8))
* 10.4 - Why do users get relaying access denied when they are remotely
sending mail through my OpenBSD system?
* 10.5 - I've set up POP, but I get errors when accessing my mail through
POP. What can I do?
* 10.6 - Why does Sendmail ignore /etc/hosts?
* 10.7 - Setting up a Secure HTTP Server using ssl(8)
* 10.8 - I made changes to /etc/passwd with an editor, but the changes
didn't seem to take place. Why?
* 10.9 - How do I add a user? Or delete a user?
* 10.10 - How do I create a ftp-only account?
* 10.11 - Setting up user disk quotas
* 10.12 - Setting up KerberosV Clients and Servers
* 10.13 - Setting up an Anonymous FTP Server
* 10.14 - Confining users to their home directories in ftpd(8)
* 10.15 - Applying patches in OpenBSD
* 10.16 - Tell me about chroot() Apache?
* 10.17 - I don't like the standard root shell!
* 10.18 - What else can I do with ksh?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.1 - Why does it say that I'm in the wrong group when I try to su root?
Existing users must be added to the "wheel" group by hand. This is done for
security reasons, and you should be cautious with whom you give access to. On
OpenBSD, users who are in the wheel group are allowed to use the su(1)
userland program to become root. Users who are not in "wheel" cannot use su
(1). Here is an example of a /etc/group entry to place the user ericj into the
"wheel" group.
If you are adding a new user with adduser(8), you can put them in the wheel
group by answering wheel at "Invite user into other groups:". This will add
them to /etc/group, which will look something like this:
wheel:*:0:root,ericj
If you are looking for a way to allow users limited access to superuser
privileges without putting them in the "wheel" group, use sudo(8).
10.2 - How do I duplicate a filesystem?
To duplicate your filesystem use dump(8) and restore(8). For example, to
duplicate everything under directory SRC to directory DST, do a:
# cd /SRC; dump 0f - . | (cd /DST; restore -rf - )
dump is designed to give you plenty of backup capabilities, and it may be an
overkill if you just want to duplicate a part of a (or an entire) filesystem.
The command tar(1) may be faster for this operation. The format looks very
similar:
# cd /SRC; tar cf - . | (cd /DST; tar xpf - )
10.3 - How do I start daemons with the system? (Overview of rc(8))
OpenBSD uses an rc(8) style startup. This uses a few key files for startup.
* /etc/rc - Main script. Should not be edited.
* /etc/rc.conf - Configuration file used by /etc/rc to know what daemons
should start with the system.
* /etc/rc.conf.local - Configuration file you can use to override settings
in /etc/rc.conf so you don't have to touch /etc/rc.conf itself, which is
convenient for people who upgrade often.
* /etc/netstart - Script used to initialize the network. Shouldn't be
edited.
* /etc/rc.local - Script used for local administration. This is where new
daemons or host specific information should be stored.
* /etc/rc.securelevel - Script which runs commands that must be run before
the security level changes. See init(8)
* /etc/rc.shutdown - Script run on shutdown. Put anything you want done
before shutdown in this file. See rc.shutdown(8)
How does rc(8) work?
The main files a system administrator should concentrate on are /etc/rc.conf
(or /etc/rc.conf.local), /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.shutdown. To get a look of
how the rc(8) procedure works, here is the flow:
After the kernel is booted, /etc/rc is started:
* Filesystems are checked. This will be bypassed if the file /etc/fastboot
exists. This is certainly not a good idea though.
* Configuration variables are read in from /etc/rc.conf and, afterwards, /
etc/rc.conf.local. Settings in rc.conf.local will override those in
rc.conf.
* Filesystems are mounted
* Clears out /tmp and preserves any editor files
* Configures the network via /etc/netstart
+ Configures your interfaces up.
+ Sets your hostname, domainname, etc.
* Starts system daemons
* Performs various other checks (quotas, savecore, etc)
* Local daemons are run, via /etc/rc.local
Starting Daemons and Services that come with OpenBSD
Most daemons and services that come with OpenBSD by default can be started on
boot by simply editing the /etc/rc.conf configuration file. To start out take
a look at the default /etc/rc.conf file. You'll see lines similar to this:
ftpd_flags=NO # for non-inetd use: ftpd_flags="-D"
A line like this shows that ftpd is not to start up with the system (at least
not via rc(8), read the Anonymous FTP FAQ to read more about this). In any
case, each line has a comment showing you the flags for NORMAL usage of that
daemon or service. This doesn't mean that you must run that daemon or service
with those flags. You can always use man(1) to see how you can have that
daemon or service start up in any way you like. For example, here is the
default line pertaining to httpd(8).
httpd_flags=NO # for normal use: "" (or "-DSSL" after reading ssl(8))
Here you can obviously see that starting up httpd normally no flags are
necessary. So a line like: " httpd_flags=""" would be necessary. But to start
httpd with ssl enabled. (Refer to the SSL FAQ or ssl(8)) You should start with
a line like: "httpd_flags="-DSSL"".
A good approach is to never touch /etc/rc.conf itself. Instead, create the
file /etc/rc.conf.local, copy just the lines you are about to change from /etc
/rc.conf and adjust them as you like. This may make future upgrading easier --
all the changes are in the one file.
Starting up local daemons and configuration
For other daemons that you might install with the system via ports or other
ways, you should use the /etc/rc.local file. For example, I've installed a
daemon which lies at /usr/local/sbin/daemonx. I want this to start at boot
time. I would put an entry into /etc/rc.local like this:
if [ -x /usr/local/sbin/daemonx ]; then
echo -n ' daemonx'; /usr/local/sbin/daemonx
fi
(If the daemon does not automatically detach on startup, remember to add a "&"
at the end of the command line.)
From now on, this daemon will be run at boot. You will be able to see any
errors on boot, a normal boot with no errors would show a line like this:
Starting local daemons: daemonx.
rc.shutdown
/etc/rc.shutdown is a script that is run at shutdown. Anything you want done
before the system shuts down should be added to this file. If you have apm,
you can also set "powerdown=YES". Which will give you the equivalent of
"shutdown -p".
10.4 - Why do users get "relaying denied" when they are remotely sending mail
through my OpenBSD system?
Try this:
# cat /etc/mail/sendmail.cf | grep relay-domains
The output may look something like this:
FR-o /etc/mail/relay-domains
If this file doesn't exist, create it. You will need to enter the hosts who
are sending mail remotely with the following syntax:
.domain.com #Allow relaying for/to any host in domain.com
sub.domain.com #Allow relaying for/to sub.domain.com and any host in that domain
10.2 #Allow relaying from all hosts in the IP net 10.2.*.*
Don't forget send a 'HangUP' signal to sendmail, (a signal which causes most
daemons to re-read their configuration file):
# kill -HUP `head -1 /var/run/sendmail.pid`
Further Reading
* http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/relayingdenied.html
* http://www.sendmail.org/tips/relaying.html
* http://www.sendmail.org/antispam.html
10.5 - I've set up POP, but users have trouble accessing mail through POP.
What can I do?
Most issues dealing with POP are problems with temporary files and lock files.
If your pop server sends an error message such as:
-ERR Couldn't open temporary file, do you own it?
Try setting up your permissions as such:
permission in /var
drwxrwxr-x 2 bin mail 512 May 26 20:08 mail
permissions in /var/mail
-rw------- 1 username username 0 May 26 20:08 username
Another thing to check is that the user actually owns their own /var/mail
file. Of course this should be the case (as in, /var/mail/joe should be owned
by joe) but if it isn't set correctly it could be the problem!
Of course, making /var/mail writable by group mail opens up some vague and
obscure security problems. It is likely that you will never have problems with
it. But it could (especially if you are a high profile site, ISP,...)! There
are several POP servers you can install right away from the ports collection.
If possible, use popa3d which is available in the OpenBSD base install. Or,
you could just have the wrong options selected for your pop daemon (like dot
locking). Or, you may just need to change the directory that it locks in
(although then the locking would only be valuable for the POP daemon.)
PS: Notice, OpenBSD does not have a group name of "mail". You need to create
this in your /etc/group file if you need it. An entry like:
mail:*:6:
would be sufficient.
10.6 - Why does Sendmail ignore /etc/hosts file?
By default, Sendmail uses DNS for name resolution, not the /etc/hosts file.
The behavior can be changed through the use of the /etc/mail/service.switch
file.
If you wish to query the hosts file before DNS servers, create a /etc/mail/
service.switch file which contains the following line:
hosts files dns
If you wish to query ONLY the hosts file, use the following:
hosts files
Send Sendmail a HUP signal:
# kill -HUP `head -1 /var/run/sendmail.pid`
and the changes will take effect.
10.7 - Setting up a Secure HTTP server with SSL(8)
OpenBSD ships with an SSL-ready httpd and RSA libraries. For use with httpd
(8), you must first have a certificate created. This will be kept in /etc/ssl/
with the corresponding key in /etc/ssl/private/. The steps shown here are
taken in part from the ssl(8) man page. Refer to it for further information.
This FAQ entry only outlines how to create an RSA certificate for web servers,
not a DSA server certificate. To find out how to do so, please refer to the
ssl(8) man page.
To start off, you need to create your server key and certificate using
OpenSSL:
# openssl genrsa -out /etc/ssl/private/server.key 1024
Or, if you wish the key to be encrypted with a passphrase that you will have
to type in when starting servers
# openssl genrsa -des3 -out /etc/ssl/private/server.key 1024
The next step is to generate a Certificate Signing Request which is used to
get a Certifying Authority (CA) to sign your certificate. To do this use the
command:
# openssl req -new -key /etc/ssl/private/server.key -out /etc/ssl/private/server.csr
This server.csr file can then be given to Certifying Authority who will sign
the key. One such CA is Thawte Certification which you can reach at http://
www.thawte.com/.
If you cannot afford this, or just want to sign the certificate yourself, you
can use the following.
# openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in /etc/ssl/private/server.csr \
-signkey /etc/ssl/private/server.key -out /etc/ssl/server.crt
With /etc/ssl/server.crt and /etc/ssl/private/server.key in place, you should
be able to start httpd(8) with the -DSSL flag (see the section about rc(8) in
this faq), enabling https transactions with your machine on port 443.
10.8 - I edited /etc/passwd, but the changes didn't seem to take place. Why?
If you edit /etc/passwd directly, your changes will be lost. OpenBSD generates
/etc/passwd dynamically with pwd_mkdb(8). The main password file in OpenBSD is
/etc/master.passwd. According to pwd_mkdb(8),
FILES
/etc/master.passwd current password file
/etc/passwd a Version 7 format password file
/etc/pwd.db insecure password database file
/etc/pwd.db.tmp temporary file
/etc/spwd.db secure password database file
/etc/spwd.db.tmp temporary file
In a traditional Unix password file, such as /etc/passwd, everything including
the user's encrypted password is available to anyone on the system (and is a
prime target for programs such as Crack). 4.4BSD introduced the master.passwd
file, which has an extended format (with additional options beyond those
provided by /etc/passwd) and is only readable by root. For faster access to
data, the library calls which access this data normally read /etc/pwd.db and /
etc/spwd.db.
OpenBSD does come with a tool with which you should edit your password file.
It is called vipw(8). Vipw will use vi (or your favourite editor defined per
$EDITOR) to edit /etc/master.passwd. After you are done editing, it will
re-create /etc/passwd, /etc/pwd.db, and /etc/spwd.db as per your changes. Vipw
also takes care of locking these files, so that if anyone else attempts to
change them at the same time, they will be denied access.
10.9 - What is the best way to add and delete users?
OpenBSD provides two commands for easily adding users to the system:
* adduser(8)
* user(8)
You can also add users by hand, using vipw(8), but this is more difficult for
most operations.
The easiest way to add a user in OpenBSD is to use the adduser(8) script. You
can configure adduser(8) by editing /etc/adduser.conf. adduser(8) allows for
consistency checks on /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and shell databases. It will
create the entries and $HOME directories for you. It can even send a message
to the user welcoming them. Here is an example user, testuser, being added to
a system. He/she will be given the $HOME directory /home/testuser, made a
member of the group guest, and given the shell /bin/ksh.
# adduser
Use option ``-silent'' if you don't want to see all warnings and questions.
Reading /etc/shells
Reading /etc/login.conf
Check /etc/master.passwd
Check /etc/group
Ok, let's go.
Don't worry about mistakes. I will give you the chance later to correct any input.
Enter username []: testuser
Enter full name []: Test FAQ User
Enter shell csh ksh nologin sh [sh]: ksh
Uid [1002]: Enter
Login group testuser [testuser]: guest
Login group is ``guest''. Invite testuser into other groups: guest no
[no]: no
Login class auth-defaults auth-ftp-defaults daemon default staff
[default]: Enter
Enter password []: Type password, then Enter
Enter password again []: Type password, then Enter
Name: testuser
Password: ****
Fullname: Test FAQ User
Uid: 1002
Gid: 31 (guest)
Groups: guest
Login Class: default
HOME: /home/testuser
Shell:i /bin/ksh
OK? (y/n) [y]: y
Added user ``testuser''
Copy files from /etc/skel to /home/testuser
Add another user? (y/n) [y]: n
Goodbye!
To delete users you should use the rmuser(8) utility. This will remove all
existence of a user. It will remove any crontab(1) entries, their $HOME dir
(if it is owned by the user), and their mail. Of course it will also remove
their /etc/passwd and /etc/group entries. Next is an example of removing the
user that was added above. Notice you are prompted for the name, and whether
or not to remove the users home directory.
# rmuser
Enter login name for user to remove: testuser
Matching password entry:
testuser:$2a$07$ZWnBOsbqMJ.ducQBfsTKUe3PL97Ve1AHWJ0A4uLamniLNXLeYrEie:1002
:31::0:0:Test FAQ User:/home/testuser:/bin/ksh
Is this the entry you wish to remove? y
Remove user's home directory (/home/testuser)? y
Updating password file, updating databases, done.
Updating group file: done.
Removing user's home directory (/home/testuser): done.
Adding users via user(8)
These tools are less interactive than the adduser(8) command, which makes them
easier to use in scripts.
The full set of tools is:
* group(8)
* groupadd(8)
* groupdel(8)
* groupinfo(8)
* groupmod(8)
* user(8)
* useradd(8)
* userdel(8)
* userinfo(8)
* usermod(8)
Actually adding users
Being that user(8) is not interactive, the easiest way to add users
efficiently is to use the adduser(8) command. The actual command /usr/sbin/
user is just a frontend to the rest of the /usr/sbin/user* commands.
Therefore, the following commands can be added by using user add or useradd,
its your choice as to what you want, and doesn't change the use of the
commands at all.
In this example, we are adding the same user with the same specifications as
the user that was added above. useradd(8) is much easier to use if you know
the default setting before adding a user. These settings are located in /etc/
usermgmt.conf and can be viewed by doing so:
$ user add -D
group users
base_dir /home
skel_dir /etc/skel
shell /bin/csh
inactive 0
expire Null (unset)
range 1000..60000
The above settings are what will be set unless you specify different with
command line options. For example, in our case, we want the user to go to the
group guest, not users. One more little hurdle with adding users, is that
passwords must be specified on the commandline. This is, the encrypted
passwords, so you must first use the encrypt(1) utility to create the
password. For example: OpenBSD's passwords by default use the Blowfish
algorithm for 6 rounds. Here is an example line to create an encrypted
password to specify to useradd(8).
$ encrypt -p -b 6
Enter string:
$2a$06$YOdOZM3.4m6MObBXjeZtBOWArqC2.uRJZXUkOghbieIvSWXVJRzlq
Now that we have our encrypted password, we are ready to add the user.
# user add -p '$2a$06$YOdOZM3.4m6MObBXjeZtBOWArqC2.uRJZXUkOghbieIvSWXVJRzlq' -u 1002 \
-s /bin/ksh -c "Test FAQ User" -m -g guest testuser
Note: Make sure to use ' ' (single quotes) around the password string, not " "
(double quotes) as the shell will interpret these before sending it to user
(8). In addition to that, make sure you specify the -m option if you want the
user's home directory created and the files from /etc/skel copied over.
To see that the user was created correctly, we can use many different
utilities. Below are a few commands you can use to quickly check that
everything was created correctly.
$ ls -la /home
total 14
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 512 May 12 14:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 15 root wheel 512 Apr 25 20:52 ..
drwxr-xr-x 24 ericj wheel 2560 May 12 13:38 ericj
drwxr-xr-x 2 testuser guest 512 May 12 14:28 testuser
$ id testuser
uid=1002(testuser) gid=31(guest) groups=31(guest)
$ finger testuser
Login: testuser Name: Test FAQ User
Directory: /home/testuser Shell: /bin/ksh
Last login Sat Apr 22 16:05 (EDT) on ttyC2
No Mail.
No Plan.
In addition to these commands, user(8) provides its own utility to show user
characteristics, called userinfo(8).
$ userinfo testuser
login testuser
passwd *
uid 1002
groups guest
change Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969
class
gecos Test FAQ User
dir /home/testuser
shell /bin/ksh
expire Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969
Removing users
To remove users with the user(8) hierarchy of commands, you will use userdel
(8). This is a very simple, yet usable command. To remove the user created in
the last example, simply:
# userdel -r testuser
Notice the -r option, which must be specified if you want the users home
directory to be deleted as well. Alternatively, you can specify -p and not -r
and this will lock the user's account, but not remove any information.
10.10 - How do I create an ftp-only account (not anonymous FTP!)?
There are a few ways to do this, but a very common way to do such is to add /
usr/bin/false into /etc/shells. Then when you set a users shell to /usr/bin/
false, they will not be able log in interactively, but will be able to use ftp
capabilities. adduser(8) will give them a home dir by default of /home/<user>.
If this is what you desire it doesn't need to be changed, however you can set
this to whatever directory you wish. You can force this user to only be able
to see files in their home directory by adding their username to /etc/
ftpchroot. Using the -A option to ftpd(8), you can allow only ftpchroot
logins!
10.11 - Setting up Quotas
Quotas are used to limit user's space that they have available to them on your
disk drives. It can be very helpful in situations where you have limited
resources. Quotas can be set by user and/or by group.
The first step to setting up quotas is to make sure that "option QUOTA" is in
your Kernel Configuration. This option is in the GENERIC kernel. After this,
you need to mark in /etc/fstab the filesystems which will have quotas enabled.
The keywords userquota and groupquota should be used to mark each filesystem
that you will be using quotas on. By default, the files quota.user and
quota.group will be created at the root of that filesystem to hold the quota
information. This default can be overridden by specifying the file name with
the quota option in /etc/fstab, such as "userquota=/var/quotas/quota.user".
Here is an example /etc/fstab that has one filesystem with userquotas enabled,
and the quota file in a non-standard location:
/dev/wd0a / ffs rw,userquota=/var/quotas/quota.user 1 1
Now it's time to set the user's quotas. To do so you use the utility edquota
(8). A simple use is just "edquota <user>". edquota(8) will use vi(1) to edit
the quotas unless the environmental variable EDITOR is set to a different
editor. For example:
# edquota ericj
This will give you output similar to this:
Quotas for user ericj:
/: blocks in use: 62, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)
inodes in use: 25, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)
To add limits, edit it to give results like this:
Quotas for user ericj:
/: blocks in use: 62, limits (soft = 1000, hard = 1050)
inodes in use: 25, limits (soft = 0, hard = 0)
Note that the quota allocation is in 1k blocks. In this case, the softlimit is
set to 1000k, and the hardlimit is set to 1050k. A softlimit is a limit where
the user is just warned when they cross it and have until their grace period
is up to get their disk usage below their limit. Grace periods can be set by
using the -t option on edquota(8). After the grace period is over the
softlimit is handled as a hardlimit. This usually results in an allocation
failure.
Now that the quotas are set, you need to turn the quotas on. To do this use
quotaon(8). For example:
# quotaon -a
This will go through /etc/fstab to turn on the filesystems with quota options.
Now that quotas are up and running, you can view them using quota(1). Using a
command of "quota <user>" will give that user's information. When called with
no arguments, the quota(1) command will give your quota statistics. For
example:
# quota ericj
Will result in output similar to this:
Disk quotas for user ericj (uid 1001):
Filesystem blocks quota limit grace files quota limit grace
/ 62 1000 1050 27 0 0
By default quotas set in /etc/fstab will be started on boot. To turn them off
use
# quotaoff -a
10.12 - Setting up KerberosV Clients and Servers
OpenBSD includes KerberosV as a pre-installed component of the default system.
For more information on KerberosV, from your OpenBSD system, use the command:
# info heimdal
10.13 - Setting up Anonymous FTP Services
Anonymous FTP allows users without accounts to access files on your computer
via the File Transfer Protocol. This will give an overview of setting up the
anonymous FTP server, and its logging, etc.
Adding the FTP account
To start off, you need to have an account on your system of "ftp". This
account shouldn't have a usable password. Here we will set the login directory
to /home/ftp, but you can put it wherever you want. When using anonymous ftp,
the ftp daemon will chroot itself to the home directory of the 'ftp' user. To
read up more on that, read the ftp(8) and chroot(2) man pages. Here is an
example of adding the ftp user. I will do this using adduser(8). We also need
to add /usr/bin/false to our /etc/shells, this is the "shell" that we will be
giving to the ftp user. This won't allow them to login, even though we will
give them an empty password. To do this you can simply echo /usr/bin/false >>
/etc/shells. Also if you wish for that shell to show up during the adduser
questions, you need to modify /etc/adduser.conf.
# adduser
Use option ``-silent'' if you don't want to see all warnings and questions.
Reading /etc/shells
Reading /etc/login.conf
Check /etc/master.passwd
Check /etc/group
Ok, let's go.
Don't worry about mistakes. I will give you the chance later to correct any input.
Enter username []: ftp
Enter full name []: anonymous ftp
Enter shell csh false ksh nologin sh tcsh zsh [sh]: false
Uid [1002]: Enter
Login group ftp [ftp]: Enter
Login group is ``ftp''. Invite ftp into other groups: guest no
[no]: no
Login class auth-defaults auth-ftp-defaults daemon default staff
[default]: Enter
Enter password []: Enter
Set the password so that user cannot logon? (y/n) [n]: y
Name: ftp
Password: ****
Fullname: anonymous ftp
Uid: 1002
Gid: 1002 (ftp)
Groups: ftp
Login Class: default
HOME: /home/ftp
Shell: /usr/bin/false
OK? (y/n) [y]: y
Added user ``ftp''
Copy files from /etc/skel to /home/ftp
Add another user? (y/n) [y]: n
Goodbye!
Directory Setup
Along with the user, this created the directory /home/ftp. This is what we
want, but there are some changes that we will have to make to get it ready for
anonymous ftp. Again these changes are explained in the ftp(8) man page.
You do not need to make a /home/ftp/usr or /home/ftp/bin directory.
* /home/ftp - This is the main directory. It should be owned by root and
have permissions of 555.
* /home/ftp/etc - This is entirely optional and not recommended, as it only
serves to give out information on users which exist on your box. If you
want your anonymous ftp directory to appear to have real users attached to
your files, you should copy /etc/pwd.db and /etc/group to this directory.
This directory should be mode 511, and the two files should be mode 444.
These are used to give owner names as opposed to numbers. There are no
passwords stored in pwd.db, they are all in spwd.db, so don't copy that
over.
* /home/ftp/pub - This is a standard directory to place files in which you
wish to share. This directory should also be mode 555.
Note that all these directories should be owned by ''root''. Here is a listing
of what the directories should look like after their creation.
# pwd
/home
# ls -laR ftp
total 5
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 512 Jul 6 10:58 ..
dr-x--x--x 2 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:34 etc
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:33 pub
ftp/etc:
total 43
dr-x--x--x 2 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:34 .
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:33 ..
-r--r--r-- 1 root ftp 316 Jul 6 11:34 group
-r--r--r-- 1 root ftp 40960 Jul 6 11:34 pwd.db
ftp/pub:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:33 .
dr-xr-xr-x 5 root ftp 512 Jul 6 11:33 ..
Starting up the server and logging
With ftpd you can choose to either run it from inetd or the rc scripts can
kick it off. These examples will show our daemon being started from
inetd.conf. First we must become familiar with some of the options to ftpd.
The default line from /etc/inetd.conf is:
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/ftpd ftpd -US
Here ftpd is invoked with -US. This will log anonymous connections to /var/log
/ftpd and concurrent sessions to /var/run/utmp. That will allow for these
sessions to be seen via who(1). For some, you might want to run only an
anonymous server, and disallow ftp for users. To do so you should invoke ftpd
with the -A option. Here is a line that starts ftpd up for anonymous
connections only. It also uses -ll which logs each connection to syslog, along
with the get, retrieve, etc, ftp commands.
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/tcpd ftpd -llUSA
Note - For people using HIGH traffic ftp servers, you might want to not invoke
ftpd from inetd.conf. The best option is to comment the ftpd line from
inetd.conf and start ftpd from rc.conf along with the -D option. This will
start ftpd as a daemon, and has much less overhead as starting it from inetd.
Here is an example line to start it from rc.conf.
ftpd_flags="-DllUSA" # for non-inetd use: ftpd_flags="-D"
This of course only works if you have ftpd taken out of /etc/inetd.conf and
made inetd re-read its configuration file.
Other relevant files
* /etc/ftpwelcome - This holds the Welcome message for people once they have
connected to your ftp server.
* /etc/motd - This holds the message for people once they have successfully
logged into your ftp server.
* .message - This file can be placed in any directory. It will be shown once
a user enters that directory.
10.14 - Confining users to their home dir's in ftpd(8)
OpenBSD's ftpd(8) is setup by default to be able to handle this very easily.
This is accomplished via the file /etc/ftpchroot. Since users cannot always be
trusted, it might be necessary to restrain them to their home directories.
This behavior is NOT on by default. Here is an example of what the default
behavior is like.
$ ftp localhost
Connected to localhost.
220 oshibana FTP server (Version 6.4/OpenBSD) ready.
Name (localhost:ericj): ericj
331 Password required for ericj.
Password: *********
230- OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MDT 2003
230-
230- Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.
230-
230- Please use the sendbug(1) utility to report bugs in the system.
230- Before reporting a bug, please try to reproduce it with the latest
230- version of the code. With bug reports, please try to ensure that
230- enough information to reproduce the problem is enclosed, and if a
230- known fix for it exists, include that as well.
230-
230 User ericj logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> cd /
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
227 Entering Passive Mode (127,0,0,1,60,7)
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'file list'.
altroot
bin
dev
etc
home
mnt
root
sbin
stand
tmp
usr
var
bsd
sys
boot
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
As you can see here, access is granted to the whole server. In a perfect world
this is ok, where all users can be trusted, but this isn't so. To limit a
user, simply add their name to the file /etc/ftpchroot. Here is an example
showing user "ericj" being restricted.
$ cat /etc/ftpchroot
# $ OpenBSD: ftpchroot,v 1.3 1996/07/18 12:12:47 deraadt Exp $
#
# list of users (one per line) given ftp access to a chrooted area.
# read by ftpd(8).
ericj
This is enough to keep the user "ericj" from escaping from his own directory.
As you can see in the next example. The / directory has suddenly changed to
his home dir!
$ ftp localhost
Connected to localhost.
220 oshibana FTP server (Version 6.4/OpenBSD) ready.
Name (localhost:ericj): ericj
331 Password required for ericj.
Password: *********
230 User ericj logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> cd /
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
227 Entering Passive Mode (127,0,0,1,92,171)
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'file list'.
.login
.mailrc
.profile
.rhosts
.ssh
.cshrc
work
mail
src
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
10.15 - Applying patches in OpenBSD
The OpenBSD source tree is constantly changing and improving, along with this
fixes to common problems are often made and patches released to the public.
These patches appear on the errata web page, and are separated into
categories. These categories correspond to patches that should be applied to
different architectures or architecture independent patches.
Note, however, that patches aren't made for new additions to OpenBSD, and are
only done for important reliability fixes or security problems that should be
addressed right away, although the choice to do so is, as always, up to the
administrator.
For the examples I will be patching talkd(8) with a security fix from the
patch obtained from the errata web page.
How are these patches different from what I would find in the CVS tree?
All patches posted to the errata web page are patches directly against the
latest release's source tree. Patches against the latest CVS tree might also
include other changes that wouldn't be wanted on a release system.
Getting your system ready to be patched.
Patches for the OpenBSD Operating System are distributed as diffs, which are
text files that hold differences to the original source code. They are NOT
distributed in binary form. This means that to patch your system you must have
the source code from the RELEASE version of OpenBSD readily available. This
does not mean that you must have ALL source code to the OpenBSD operating
system to patch your system, but must have all code for the program which you
are patching. For instance, if you are patching the kernel you must have all
source for the kernel on hand.
cvs(1) is a very handy tool that can be used to grab only the source that you
need via any of the anonymous cvs servers located around the world. You can
get a listing of these servers on the Anonymous CVS page.
To retrieve the source code for talkd(8) from 3.4-release using cvs(1), you
would use the following lines:
$ export CVSROOT=anoncvs@anoncvs5.usa.openbsd.org:/cvs
$ cvs co -rOPENBSD_3_4_BASE src/libexec/talkd/
cvs server: Updating src/libexec/talkd
U src/libexec/talkd/announce.c
U src/libexec/talkd/talkd.c
U src/libexec/talkd/talkd.h
To find the CVS path to the code that you need, you can find this in the patch
on the Index: line. In this case, the CVS path was src/libexec/talkd/. Always
check out the revision of OPENBSD_version_number_BASE. Without "_BASE" you
will be checking out the stable branch, which might contain other changes that
will interfere. If you are already tracking the patch branch, the patches
should already be in that source, however you should always check and make
sure. You can always look at OpenBSD-current changes to see which patches have
been applied to the patch branch. If the patches haven't been applied yet, you
will need to grab the latest release source using the commands above.
Also, for those users that bought official OpenBSD CDs, you can get the source
code directly off of the CD. Refer to the CD insert on how to extract the
source from the CD. In which case you won't need to obtain the source via
anoncvs.
Apply by doing:
cd /usr/src
patch -p0 < 026_talkd.patch
cd libexec/talkd
make obj && make depend && make && make install
Index: libexec/talkd/announce.c <------ Path to sources
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/libexec/talkd/announce.c,v
retrieving revision 1.8
retrieving revision 1.9
diff -u -r1.8 -r1.9
--- libexec/talkd/announce.c 1998/08/18 03:42:10 1.8
+++ libexec/talkd/announce.c 2000/07/06 00:01:45 1.9
@@ -160,6 +160,6 @@
*(bptr++) = '\n';
}
*bptr = '\0';
- fprintf(tf, big_buf);
+ fprintf(tf, "%s", big_buf);
fflush(tf);
}
Once you've obtained the proper sources, you can obtain the patch and place it
in src/
Applying Patches
$ cd /usr/src
$ patch -p0</path/to/026_talkd.patch
Hmm... Looks like a unified diff to me...
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|Apply by doing:
| cd /usr/src
| patch -p0 < 026_talkd.patch
| cd libexec/talkd
| make obj && make depend && make && make install
|
|Index: libexec/talkd/announce.c
|===================================================================
|RCS file: /cvs/src/libexec/talkd/announce.c,v
|retrieving revision 1.8
|retrieving revision 1.9
|diff -u -r1.8 -r1.9
|--- libexec/talkd/announce.c 1998/08/18 03:42:10 1.8
|+++ libexec/talkd/announce.c 2000/07/06 00:01:45 1.9
--------------------------
Patching file libexec/talkd/announce.c using Plan A...
Hunk #1 succeeded at 160. <------------ Patch Succeeded
done
$ cd /usr/src/libexec/talkd/
$ ls
CVS announce.c print.c table.c talkd.c
Makefile announce.c.orig process.c talkd.8 talkd.h
$ make obj && make depend && make
making /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/obj
mkdep -a /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/talkd.c /home/ericj/lsrc/sr
c/libexec/talkd/announce.c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/process.c
/home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/table.c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec
/talkd/print.c
cc -O2 -c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/talkd.c
cc -O2 -c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/announce.c
cc -O2 -c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/process.c
cc -O2 -c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/table.c
cc -O2 -c /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/print.c
cc -o ntalkd talkd.o announce.o process.o table.o print.o
nroff -Tascii -mandoc /home/ericj/lsrc/src/libexec/talkd/talkd.8 > talk
d.cat8
$ sudo make install
install -c -s -o root -g bin -m 555 ntalkd /usr/libexec
install -c -o root -g bin -m 444 talkd.cat8 /usr/share/man/cat8/talkd.0
/usr/share/man/cat8/ntalkd.0 -> /usr/share/man/cat8/talkd.0
Once you have done that, you should restart that service.
10.16 - Tell me about this chroot() Apache?
In OpenBSD, the Apache httpd(8) server has been chroot(2)ed by default. While
this is a tremendous boost to security, it can create issues, if you are not
prepared.
What is a chroot?
A chroot(2)ed application is locked into a particular directory and unable to
wander around the rest of the directory tree, and sees that directory as its "
/" (root) directory. In the case of httpd(8), the program starts, opens its
log files, binds to its TCP ports (though, it doesn't accept data yet), and
reads its configuration. Next, it locks itself into /var/www and drops
privileges, then starts to accept requests. This means all files served and
used by Apache must be in the /var/www directory. This helps security
tremendously -- should there be a security issue with Apache, the damage will
be confined to a single directory with only "read only" permissions and no
resources to cause mischief with.
What does this mean to the user?
Put bluntly, chroot(2)ing Apache is something new, and many older applications
and system configurations will not work as before.
* Historic file system layouts: Servers upgraded from older versions of
OpenBSD may have web files located in user's directories, which clearly
won't work in a chroot(2)ed environment, as httpd(8) can't reach the /home
directory. Administrators may also discover their existing /var/www
partition is too small to hold all web files. Your options are to
restructure or do not use the chroot(2) feature. You can, of course, use
symbolic links in the user's home directories pointing to subdirectories
in /var/www, but you can NOT use links in /var/www pointing to other part
of the file system -- that is prevented from working by the chroot(2)ing.
Note that if you want your users to have chroot(2)ed FTP access, this will
not work, as the FTP chroot will (again) prevent you from accessing the
targets of the symbolic links. A solution to this is to not use /home as
your home directories for these users, rather use something similar to /
var/www/home.
* Log Rotation: Normally, logs are rotated by renaming the old files, then
sending httpd(8) a SIGUSR1 signal to cause Apache to close its old log
files and open new ones. This is no longer possible, as httpd(8) has no
ability to open its own log files once privileges are dropped. httpd(8)
must be stopped and restarted:
# apachectl stop && apachectl start
There are also other strategies available, including logging to a pipe(2),
and using an external log rotator at the other end of the pipe(2).
* Existing Apache modules: Virtually all will load, however some may not
work properly in chroot(2), and many have issues on " apachectl restart",
generating an error, which causes httpd(8) to exit.
* Existing CGIs: Most will NOT work as is. They may need programs or
libraries outside /var/www. Some can be fixed by compiling so they are
statically linked (not needing libraries in other directories), most may
be fixed by populating the /var/www directory with the files required by
the application, though this is non- trivial and requires considerable
programming knowledge -- most users will find it easier to just disable
the chroot(2) feature until they are updated.
In some cases, the application or configuration can be altered to run within
the chroot. In other cases, you will simply have to disable this feature using
the -u option for httpd(8) in /etc/rc.conf.
10.17 - I don't like the standard root shell!
The default shell for root on OpenBSD is csh, due primarily to tradition.
There is no requirement that OpenBSD have csh(1) for the root login (though
keep reading before changing it).
Some users who come from other Unix-like operating systems find csh(1)
unfamiliar, and ask if and how they can change it. There are a few options:
* Don't login as root! Between su and sudo, there should be few reasons for
users to log in as root for most applications after initial setup.
* Invoke your favorite shell after login: If you like ksh(1) or any other
shell, just invoke it from the default shell.
* Change the root shell: This can be done using chsh or vipw.
A traditional Unix guideline is to only use statically compiled shells for
root, because if your system comes up in single user mode, non-root partitions
won't be mounted and dynamically linked shells won't be able to access
libraries located in the /usr partition. This isn't actually a significant
issue for OpenBSD, as the system will prompt you for a shell when it comes up
in single user mode, and the default is sh. The three standard shells in
OpenBSD (csh, sh and ksh) are all statically linked, and thus usable in single
user mode.
It is sometimes said that one should never change the root shell, though there
is no reason not to in OpenBSD. But again, this shouldn't be an issue -- just
don't log in as root.
10.18 - What else can I do with ksh?
In OpenBSD, ksh is pdksh, the Public Domain Korn Shell, and is the same binary
as sh.
Users comfortable with bash, often used on Linux systems, will probably find
ksh very familiar. Ksh(1) provides most of the commonly used features in bash,
including tab completion, command line editing and history via the arrow keys,
and CTRL-A/CTRL-E to jump to beginning/end of the command line. If other
features of bash are desired, bash itself can be loaded via either ports or
packages.
The command prompt of ksh can easily be changed to something providing more
information than the default "$ " by setting the PS1 variable. For example,
inserting the following line:
export PS1='$PWD $ '
in your /etc/profile produces the following command prompt:
/home/nick $
See the file /etc/ksh.kshrc, which includes many useful features and examples,
and may be invoked in your user's .profile.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq10.html,v 1.100 2004/03/25 02:41:51 jcs Exp $
==============================================================================
11 - Performance Tuning
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 11.1 - Disk I/O
* 11.2 - Hardware Choices
* 11.3 - Why aren't we using async mounts?
* 11.4 - Tuning your monitor resolution under XFree86
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.1 - Disk I/O
Disk I/O speed is a significant factor in the overall speed of your computer.
It becomes increasingly important when your computer is hosting a multi-user
environment (users of all kinds, from those who log-in interactively to those
who see you as a file-server or a web-server.) Data storage constantly needs
attention, especially when your partitions run out of space or when your disks
fail. OpenBSD has several options to increase the speed of your disk
operations and provide fault tolerance.
Table Of Contents
* CCD - Concatenated Disk Driver.
* RAID
* Soft Updates
* Size of the namei() cache
11.1.1 - CCD
The first option is the use of ccd(4), the Concatenated Disk Driver. This
allows you to join several partitions into one virtual disk (and thus, you
can make several disks look like one disk). This concept is similar to
that of LVM (logical volume management), which is found in many commercial
Unix flavors.
If you are running GENERIC, ccd is already enabled (in /usr/src/sys/conf/
GENERIC). If you have customized your kernel, you may need to return it to
your kernel configuration. Either way, a line such as this should be in
your configuration file:
pseudo-device ccd 4 # concatenated disk devices
The above example gives you up to 4 ccd devices (virtual disks). Now you
need to figure out which partitions on your real disks you want to
dedicate to ccd. Use disklabel to mark these partitions as type 'ccd'. On
some architectures, disklabel may not allow you to do this. In this case,
mark them as 'ffs'.
If you are using ccd to gain performance by striping, note that you will
not get optimum performance unless you use the same model of disks with
the same disklabel settings.
Edit /etc/ccd.conf to look something like this: (for more information on
configuring ccd, look at ccdconfig(8))
# Configuration file for concatenated disk devices
#
# ccd ileave flags component devices
ccd0 16 none /dev/sd2e /dev/sd3e
To make your changes take effect, run
# ccdconfig -C
As long as /etc/ccd.conf exists, ccd will automatically configure itself
upon boot. Now, you have a new disk, ccd0, a combination of /dev/sd2e and
/dev/sd3e. Just use disklabel on it like you normally would to make the
partition or partitions you want to use. Again, don't use the 'c'
partition as an actual partition that you put stuff on. Make sure your
usable partitions are at least one cylinder off from the beginning of the
disk.
11.1.2 - RAID
Another solution is raid(4), which will have you use raidctl(8) to control
your raid devices. OpenBSD's RAID is based upon Greg Oster's NetBSD port
of the CMU RAIDframe software. OpenBSD has support for RAID levels of 0,
1, 4, and 5.
With raid, as with ccd, support must be in the KERNEL. Unlike ccd, support
for RAID is not found in GENERIC, so it must be compiled into your kernel
(RAID support adds some 500K to the size of an i386 kernel).
pseudo-device raid 4 # RAIDframe disk device
Setting up RAID on some operating systems is confusing and painful to say
the least. Not so with RAIDframe. Read the raid(4) and raidctl(8) man
pages to get full details. There are many options and possible
configurations available, and a detailed explanation is beyond the scope
of this document.
11.1.3 - Soft updates
Another tool that can be used to speed up your system is softupdates. One
of the slowest operations in the traditional BSD file system is updating
metainfo (which happens, among other times, when you create or delete
files and directories.) Softupdates attempts to update metainfo in RAM
instead of writing to the hard disk each and every single metainfo update.
Another effect of this is that the metainfo on disk should always be
complete, although not always up to date. So, a system crash should not
require fsck(8) upon boot up, but simply a background version of fsck that
makes changes to the metainfo in RAM (a la softupdates). This means
rebooting a server is much faster, as you don't have to wait for fsck!
(OpenBSD does not have this feature yet.) You can read more about
softupdates in the Softupdates FAQ entry.
11.1.4 - Size of the namei() cache
Note: previously, the options(4) manual page recommended to set the NVNODE
=integer kernel option. This is no longer recommended; you should now use
the sysctl(8) command instead.
The name-to-inode translation (a.k.a., namei()) cache controls the speed
of pathname to inode(5) translation. A reasonable way to derive a value
for the cache, should a large number of namei() cache misses be noticed
with a tool such as systat(1), is to examine the system's current computed
value with sysctl(8), (which calls this parameter "kern.maxvnodes") and to
increase this value until either the namei() cache hit rate improves or it
is determined that the system does not benefit substantially from an
increase in the size of the namei() cache. After the value has been
determined, you can set it at system startup time with sysctl.conf(5).
11.2 - Hardware choices
(Note- this section is heavily centered around the i386, or PC, architecture.
That is to say... other architectures don't give you quite as many choices!)
The performance of your applications depends heavily on your OS and the
facilities it provides. This may be part of the reason that you are using
OpenBSD. The performance of your applications also depends heavily on your
hardware. For many folks, the Price/Performance ratio of a brand new PC with a
Intel Pentium IV or AMD Athlon processor is much better than the Price/
Performance ratio of a Sun UltraSparc 60! Of course, the price of OpenBSD
can't be beaten.
If you are shopping for a new PC, whether you are buying it piece by piece or
completely pre-built, you want to make sure first that you are buying reliable
parts. In the PC world, this is not easy. Bad or otherwise unreliable or
mismatched parts can make OpenBSD run poorly and crash often. The best advice
we can give is to be careful, and buy brands and parts that have been reviewed
by an authority you trust. Sometimes, when you skimp on the price of a PC, you
lose in quality!
There are certain things that will help bring out the maximum performance of
your hardware:
* Use multiple disks. Instead of buying one large disk, buy multiple smaller
disks. While this may cost more, distributing the load over multiple
spindles will decrease the amount of time necessary to access data on the
disks. And, with more spindles, you will get more reliability and faster
data access with RAID.
* Use SCSI if you need very high disk IO speeds. IDE disks normally run at
5400 RPM to 7200 RPM. Using high end IDE disks, it may be unreasonable to
expect more than 15 to 20 megabytes per second of throughput from a single
disk. Using high end SCSI disks (higher cost 10k RPM to 15k RPM disks),
you can achieve performance higher than this. Conversely, if you are using
medium or low end SCSI disks, this is a waste of money, and IDE will serve
you just as well, if not better.
If you are building a server, and you need more than one drive, you may
want to consider SCSI. IDE limits you to two disks per controller.
Concurrent access to these two disks may have a negative impact on the I/O
performance of these disks. Wide SCSI limits you to 15 per controller, and
has better support for concurrent access than IDE. While SCSI costs more,
the flexibility and performance can justify these costs in some
environments.
* Use SDRAM instead of DRAM. This option applies mainly to PCs. Most other
architectures don't give you a choice of what kind of RAM you can use.
Several PCs still do. You will get better performance with SDRAM versus
DRAM (SIMMs). If your system supports RDRAM, DDR or some other new type of
RAM, then you are even further ahead...
* Use ECC or parity RAM. Parity adds some functionality to see if the data
in RAM has been corrupted. ECC extends this functionality and attempts to
correct some bit corruption errors on the fly. This option applies mainly
to PCs. Most other architectures simply require parity or ECC capable RAM.
Several non-PC computers won't even boot with non-parity RAM. If you
aren't using ECC/parity RAM, you may get data corruption and other
abnormalities. Several manufacturers of "cheap PC RAM" don't even make an
ECC variety! This will help you avoid them! PC manufacturers often sell
several product lines, divided around "servers" and "workstations." The
servers will incorporate ECC RAM into their architecture. Unix workstation
manufacturers have been using parity (and now ECC) for several years in
all of their product lines.
* Avoid ISA devices. While most folks avoid ISA devices because they are
generally hard to configure and out of date, there are still plenty in
existence. If you are using the ISA bus for your disk or network
controllers, (or even worse, for both) remember that the ISA bus itself
can be a performance bottleneck. If you need speed, look into PCI. Of
course, there are still several ISA bus cards that work just fine.
Unfortunately, most of these are sound cards and serial port cards.
* Avoid cheap PCI network adapters. OpenBSD supports a plethora of cheap PCI
network adapters. These adapters work great in home systems, and also low
or moderate throughput business and research environments. But, if you
need high throughput and low impact on your server, you are better off
buying a quality PCI network adapter. Unfortunately, some expensive brand
adapters (such as the 3com XL series) are not much better than the cheap
adapters. One favourite 10/100Mbps adapter is the Intel EtherExpress PRO/
100.
11.3 - Why aren't we using async mounts?
Question: "I simply do "mount -u -o async /" which makes one package I use
(which insists on touching a few hundred things from time to time) usable. Why
is async mounting frowned upon and not on by default (as it is in some other
unixen)? Isn't it a much simpler, and therefore, a safer way of improving
performance in some applications?"
Answer: "Async mounts is indeed faster than sync mounts, but they are also
less safe. What happens in case of a power failure? Or a hardware problem? The
quest for speed should not sacrifice the reliability and the stability of the
system. Check the man page for mount(8)."
async All I/O to the file system should be done asynchronously.
This is a dangerous flag to set since it does not guaran-
tee to keep a consistent file system structure on the
disk. You should not use this flag unless you are pre-
pared to recreate the file system should your system
crash. The most common use of this flag is to speed up
restore(8) where it can give a factor of two speed in-
crease.
On the other hand, when you are dealing with temp data that you can recreate
from scratch after a crash, you can gain speed by using a separate partition
for that data only, mounted async. Again, do this only if you don't mind the
loss of all the data in the partition when something goes wrong. For this
reason, mfs(8) partitions are mounted asynchronously, as they will get wiped
and recreated on a reboot anyway.
11.4 - Tuning your monitor resolution under XFree86
Note: Most users do NOT need to worry about manually creating a ModeLine in
modern versions of X. HOWEVER, sometimes it is needed for unusual situations.
Getting an X server working at an acceptable resolution with many multi-sync
monitors is possible. If anyone has tried to do this with the standard
xf86config or XF86Setup utilities, they probably didn't get the best possible
results. One of the more painful aspects is simply getting your monitor
running with your preferred resolution, and then getting the vertical scan
rate set to at least 72-75 Hz, a rate where the screen flicker is much less
visible to humans. Conversely, what if you are trying to set the vertical scan
rate so it is very low? You can set it at 50 Hz so that it can be captured on
to video without flicker, but the methods to do this are non-obvious with the
standard XFree86 tools and documentation.
Finally, at the resolutions many people normally use with inexpensive VGA
monitors (800x600, 1024x768, 1152x900, 1280x1024), it is possible (at least on
newer monitors) to use vertical scan rates of 85Hz and above, to achieve an
extremely clean, palatable picture. The XFree86 X server has a mechanism which
allows you to describe in detail the video mode you want to use, this is the
ModeLine. A ModeLine has four sections, a single number for the pixel clock,
four numbers for horizontal timings, four numbers for vertical timings, and an
optional section with a list of flags specifying other characteristics of the
mode (such as Interlace, DoubleScan, and more... see the XF86Config(5) manual
page for more ModeLine details).
Generating a ModeLine is a black art... Luckily, there are several scripts
which can do this for you. One is Colas XFree86 ModeLine Generator. Another is
The XFree86 Modeline Generator hosted at SourceForge, and there are several
others available on Freshmeat. Before you can use these ModeLine generators,
you need to figure out the vertical and horizontal sync limits for your
monitor. This is often documented in the manual, or on the manufacturer's web
site. If you can't find either of those, simply search the web for the monitor
make and model, several people have been kind enough to compile lists with
this information.
For example, say you have a Dell D1226H monitor. You searched in agony at
Dell's web site to find that it has a 30-95 kHz horizontal scan range, and a
50-160 Hz vertical scan range. Visit the ModeLine generator page, enter this
information. Next, you need to enter the minimum vertical scan rate you want.
Any rate at or above 72 Hz should generally have low visible flicker. As you
go higher, the clearer and crisper your screen image becomes.
With all of these bits of information, the script will generate a ModeLine for
every possible 4x3 resolution which your monitor can support, above the
minimum vertical scan rate which you enter. If someone enters the Dell specs
above and a 75 Hz vertical scan minimum, the script gives out something like
the following:
ModeLine "320x240" 20.07 320 336 416 448 240 242 254 280 #160Hz
ModeLine "328x246" 20.86 328 344 424 456 246 248 260 286 #160Hz
...
ModeLine "816x612" 107.39 816 856 1056 1136 612 614 626 652 #145Hz
ModeLine "824x618" 108.39 824 864 1064 1144 618 620 632 658 #144Hz
ModeLine "832x624" 109.38 832 872 1072 1152 624 626 638 664 #143Hz
...
ModeLine "840x630" 109.58 840 880 1080 1160 630 632 644 670 #141Hz
ModeLine "848x636" 110.54 848 888 1088 1168 636 638 650 676 #140Hz
...
ModeLine "1048x786" 136.02 1048 1096 1336 1432 786 788 800 826 #115Hz
ModeLine "1056x792" 136.58 1056 1104 1344 1440 792 794 806 832 #114Hz
ModeLine "1064x798" 137.11 1064 1112 1352 1448 798 800 812 838 #113Hz
...
ModeLine "1432x1074" 184.07 1432 1496 1816 1944 1074 1076 1088 1114 #85Hz
ModeLine "1576x1182" 199.86 1576 1648 2008 2152 1182 1184 1196 1222 #76Hz
ModeLine "1584x1188" 198.93 1584 1656 2016 2160 1188 1190 1202 1228 #75Hz
Now, this monitor claims to do 1600x1200 @ 75 Hz, but the script does not say
this is within 75 Hz. So, if you really want exactly 1600x1200, go down a
notch with your minimum vertical rate... (Here, we go down to 70 Hz)
ModeLine "1592x1194" 197.97 1592 1664 2024 2168 1194 1196 1208 1234 #74Hz
ModeLine "1600x1200" 199.67 1600 1672 2032 2176 1200 1202 1214 1240 #74Hz
ModeLine "1608x1206" 198.65 1608 1680 2040 2184 1206 1208 1220 1246 #73Hz
ModeLine "1616x1212" 197.59 1616 1688 2048 2192 1212 1214 1226 1252 #72Hz
ModeLine "1624x1218" 199.26 1624 1696 2056 2200 1218 1220 1232 1258 #72Hz
ModeLine "1632x1224" 198.15 1632 1704 2064 2208 1224 1226 1238 1264 #71Hz
ModeLine "1640x1230" 199.81 1640 1712 2072 2216 1230 1232 1244 1270 #71Hz
ModeLine "1648x1236" 198.64 1648 1720 2080 2224 1236 1238 1250 1276 #70Hz
Here, we see the monitor really does 1600x1200 @ 74 Hz when the dot clock
(bandwidth) is limited to 200MHz. Set the bandwidth according to the limits
defined by the monitor.
Once you have your ModeLines, put them into your /etc/X11/XF86Config file.
Comment out the old ModeLines, so that you can use them again if the new ones
don't work. Next, choose what resolution you actually want to run at. First,
figure out if X is running in accelerated mode (which it does with most video
cards), so you know which "Screen" section of the XF86Config to modify. Or,
just modify all of the Screen sections.
Section "Screen"
Driver "Accel"
Device "Primary Card"
Monitor "Primary Monitor"
DefaultColorDepth 32
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
The first resolution you see after the "Modes" keyword is the resolution that
X is going to start in. By pressing CTRL-ALT-KEYPAD MINUS, or CTRL-ALT-KEYPAD
PLUS, you can switch between any resolutions that you list here. According to
the section above, X will try to start in 32-bit color mode (via the
DefaultColorDepth directive, without it X will start in 8-bit color mode.) The
first resolution it will try to use is 1280x1024 (it follows the order of the
Modes line.) Note that "1280x1024" is just a label for the values in the
ModeLine.
Note that the ModeLine generator script has options to relax its timings for
older or smaller monitors, and also has the ability to provide ModeLines for
specific resolutions. Depending on the type of hardware you have, it may not
be very easy to use with the default options. If the picture is too tall, too
wide, or too small, or is shifted horizontally or vertically, and the controls
of the monitor aren't enough to correct its appearance, once can use xvidtune
(1) to adjust the ModeLine to better fit with the monitor's timings.
On most modern monitors, there is no fixed limit on the bandwidth, thus they
are often not listed anymore in the specs. What happens is that the more you
go up in bandwidth, the fuzzier the screen image becomes. So you may want to
put in the bandwidth of your card (also named "dotclock") to test (you cannot
damage your monitor this way), and go progressively down in BW down to have a
nice crisp image.
If this seems needlessly complex, that's because it is. XFree86 4.0 addresses
this, and makes this process much easier since it has several built-in modes
and is capable of reading back capabilities from "plug and play" monitors
through DDC and DDC2.
You can download the Colas XFree86 ModeLine Generator script at: http://
koala.ilog.fr/ftp/pub/Klone/. You need to grab the Klone interpreter, and
compile it. It is in the ports as lang/klone. The scripts exist under the
scripts directory in the Klone distribution. (The port installs them to /usr/
local/lib/klone/scripts.)
There are two versions of the script included, the first is a CGI version
identical to the web page above. The second is a non-CGI version which will
take your complete XF86Config file, decode the monitor specs that you entered
into xf86config/XF86Setup (Now, think, did you actually enter the specs for
your monitor or just choose generic ones?), and fix the existing ModeLines
accordingly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq11.html,v 1.50 2004/04/21 00:02:10 nick Exp $
==============================================================================
12 - Platform-Specific Questions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 12.1 - General hardware notes
+ 12.1.1 - PCI
+ 12.1.2 - ISA
* 12.2 - DEC Alpha
* 12.3 - HP 9000 series 300, 400
* 12.4 - HP Precision Architecture (PA-RISC)
* 12.5 - i386
+ 12.5.1 - ISA NICs
+ 12.5.2 - OpenBSD won't work on my 80386/80386SX/80486SX system
+ 12.5.3 - My dmesg shows multiple devices sharing the same interrupt
+ 12.5.4 - How do I use a USB keyboard?
+ 12.5.5 - My keyboard/mouse keeps locking up (or goes crazy)!
* 12.6 - Mac68k
+ 12.6.1 - My Mac68k system doesn't seem to work
+ 12.6.2 - Why is my Mac68k losing so much time?
+ 12.6.3 - My Mac68k system won't work with two disks
+ 12.6.4 - The installer crashed during install
* 12.7 - MacPPC
+ 12.7.1 - Why is my bm(4) driver so slow?
* 12.8 - MVME68k
* 12.9 - SPARC
* 12.10 - UltraSPARC
+ 12.10.1 - My UltraSPARC won't boot from the floppy image
* 12.11 - DEC VAX
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.1 - General hardware notes
12.1.1 - PCI devices
* PCI devices are mostly self-configuring -- the computer and OS will
allocate resources to the cards as required.
* Interrupts can be shared on the PCI bus. Not only can they be, the system
will often perform better when the IRQs are shared, especially on i386
systems.
* There are several different PCI bus standards. You will occasionally find
a PCI2.2 specification card that will just not work in a PCI2.1
specification system. Also, many cards with on-board bridges (such as,
multi-port network cards) will not work well in older systems.
* The PCI bus supports two levels of signaling, 3.3v and 5v. Cards that work
with 3.3v signaling have a second notch cut in their PCI connector. Most
PCI cards use 5v signaling, which is used by most computers. The Soekris
single-board computers (Net45x1 and Net4801) are commonly-encountered
computers that only support 3.3v signaling.
12.1.2 - ISA devices
* ISA devices cannot share resources, and in general, must be manually
configured to settings that don't conflict with other devices in the
system.
* Some ISA devices are "Plug and Play" (isapnp(4)) -- if you have any
problem with these devices, though, verify their configuration in your
dmesg(8), ISAPnP doesn't always work as desired.
* In general, if you have a choice, most people are best advised to avoid
ISA cards in favor of PCI. ISA cards are more difficult to configure and
have a much greater negative impact on the system's performance.
12.2 - DEC Alpha
[nothing yet]
12.3 - HP300
[nothing yet]
12.4 - HPPA
[nothing yet]
12.5 - i386
12.5.1 - ISA NICs
As OpenBSD runs well on older hardware, users often will end up using ISA NICs
on OpenBSD systems. ISA hardware requires much more configuration and
understanding than does PCI hardware. In general, you can't just stuff the
card in the computer and expect it to magically work. In many machines, if
your ISA device is not in a "Plug 'n' Play" (PNP) mode, you must reserve the
resources the card uses in the system's BIOS.
3Com 3C509B ep(4)
This is an excellent performing ISA NIC, supported by the ep(4) driver. The
'B' version can be distinguished from the non-B version by labeling on the
card and by the larger "main" chip on the board (approximately 2.5cm on a side
for the 'B' version, vs. 2cm on a side on the older version), and will provide
better performance on a loaded or dual network card system. The 3C509B ships
configured in a PNP mode, which unfortunately does not comply with standards,
and causes problems in OpenBSD's isapnp(4) support. The adapter is picked up
first as a non-PNP device, then again after the PNP support comes on-line,
resulting in an extra NIC showing in the dmesg. This may work fine, or it may
cause other problems. It is highly recommended that the 3C509B cards have PNP
mode disabled and manually configured to non-conflicting settings using the
3Com DOS-based configuration utilities before configuration.
The ep(4) driver will pick the cards up at any hardware combination that does
not conflict with other devices in the system.
If you have multiple 3C509 cards in your system, it is recommended that you
label the cards' spine with the MAC address, and use the dmesg to identify
which is which.
Note that the 3C509, the 3C905 and the 3C590 are often confused. The 3C509 is
a 10Mbps ISA card, the 3C905 and 3C590 are PCI cards.
NE2000
The original NE2000 NIC was developed in the mid-1980s by Novell. Since then,
many manufacturers have produced cards that are very similar, which are
generally called NE2000-compatibles, or clones. Performance of these clone
cards varies greatly. While some older NE2000-compatible cards performed very
well, many of the currently-available ones perform poorly. NE2000-compatibles
are supported by the ne(4) driver in OpenBSD.
OpenBSD will handle some ISAPNP-capable NE2000-compatible cards well if the
ISAPNP mode is turned on. Other cards will have to be set using either jumpers
or a DOS-based configuration utility. Unfortunately, as the original NE2000
cards did not have software configuration or ISAPNP support, there are no
standards for this -- you need the utility that will have been originally
supplied with your specific card. This can often be difficult to obtain.
The ne(4) driver supports three configurations of the ISA NE2000 card in the
GENERIC OpenBSD kernel:
ne0: port 0x240 irq 9
ne1: port 0x300 irq 10
ne2: port 0x280 irq 9
If these settings are not acceptable, you can adjust them using User Kernel
Configuration (UKC) or by building a customized kernel.
Note that the ne(4) driver is fairly "dumb" -- only the I/O port is probed, if
any of the above I/O addresses is detected, the corresponding IRQ is assumed.
dmesg(8) will not reflect the actual IRQ of the adapter in the case of ISA ne
(4) drivers. If this is not the actual IRQ your card is set to, it will not
work.
Note that there are non-ISA cards that use the ne(4) driver -- PCI and PCMCIA
ne(4) cards exist. These notes do not apply to them, these devices are
auto-configuring.
12.5.2 - OpenBSD won't work on my 80386/80386SX/80486SX system!
80386sx
The 80386sx has a maximum addressing range of 16M, which is at the very low
end of OpenBSD/i386's support. Most 80386sx systems can't support more than 8M
of RAM, which places them in the "For Experts Only" category, as some
non-trivial steps and a second computer are required to get going. Also, see
the next section:
80386
OpenBSD 3.4 will run on an 80386 or 80386sx system IF it has a 80387 or
80387sx hardware math coprocessor (Floating Point Unit, or FPU).
Unfortunately, these FPUs were not common, so many 80386 systems will not have
them. OpenBSD will not run without the FPU on the i386 platform. Again, be
aware that this is a very small amount of processor for a crypto-intensive
operating system like OpenBSD. You aren't likely to be happy with the
performance of such a machine for general use.
80486SX
The 80486SX chip was a "low-cost" version of the 80486, which lacked the
hardware floating point support (like the 80386) OpenBSD 3.4 requires.
Fortunately, full 80486DX chips are fairly available, and is an easy upgrade
in most systems.
12.5.3 - My dmesg shows multiple devices sharing the same Interrupt (IRQ)!
This is entirely acceptable, and in fact, even desirable for PCI devices. This
is a design feature of the PCI bus. Some people will say that sharing
interrupt requests (IRQs) is bad, however they are either confusing the
situation with the ISA bus (where IRQ sharing is not permitted), or past
experience with broken hardware or software.
ISA devices can not share IRQs. If you find ISA devices sharing IRQs, you must
correct this problem.
12.5.4 - How do I use a USB keyboard?
OpenBSD/i386 will usually use a USB keyboard and mouse without difficulty
after installation. However, installing OpenBSD on a system with a USB
keyboard can be difficult, as the install kernels do not have the full
complement of USB drivers required for complete USB keyboard support. As
machines vary, you may need to experiment:
* Some systems have a BIOS option for "Legacy USB support" or something
similar. This allows the BIOS to emulate a traditional PS/2 keyboard. If
this is not enabled, you will not be able to enter commands at the boot>
prompt. However, some systems may run better with this feature turned on,
some with it turned off. Some may install better with it in one setting
and run better with it in the other. Some machines do not have this
option.
* If you use "Legacy USB support", you may find it works better to disable
kernel USB support in User Kernel Configuration (UKC) by entering "disable
uhci" before completing boot.
* PS/2 keyboard/mouse-to-USB adapters may not work.
* You *may* find the system is more stable with the mouse disconnected until
the system is fully installed.
* In the worst case situation, you may find it easier to install OpenBSD on
another computer, then move the hard disk to your "legacy-free" machine.
Once you have OpenBSD installed:
* Using UKC to disable pckbd0 may result in less "kernel message noise"
(usually, pckdc: cmd failed), though if you do this, you will not be able
to use a PS/2 mouse.
* The USB keyboard and mouse are handled just like a PS/2 keyboard and mouse
by X. Use "wscons" for your mouse driver.
* At the moment, there is no way to set up a serial console on a
"legacy-free" (no serial, parallel or PS/2 port) system. If you have
difficulty with your system, you will have to record messages with pencil
and paper.
Unfortunately, there are a variety of ways in which USB is supported on PCs
right now, so you may have to do some experimenting with your system to get
the USB keyboard working properly. Please contact faq@openbsd.org with any
other well-documented USB keyboard tips you find.
12.5.5 - My keyboard/mouse keeps locking up (or goes crazy)!
This is most often seen when using a "switch box" to attach multiple computers
to one keyboard, monitor and mouse. You can experiment with different brand
and design switch boxes, but OpenBSD seems to be more sensitive to switching
the mouse than some other operating systems. The problem is usually just the
switching of the mouse. If you are not using the mouse, the solution is
simple: don't attach the mouse cable to the computer. If you are using the
mouse, an easy solution is "one mouse per computer", and switch just the
keyboard and monitor. If you just want console access to the machine, you may
wish to consider using a serial console instead.
12.6 - Mac68k
12.6.1 - My Mac68k system doesn't seem to work!
Unfortunately, we have a small number of different Mac68k machines in the
hands of OpenBSD developers, and thus, only a few are known to work well at
this moment. If you can help restore support to currently broken systems, your
code would be welcome!
12.6.2 - Why is my Mac68k losing so much time?
This is caused by a hardware bug. OpenBSD uses clock interrupts to keep track
of the current time, but these interrupts have the lowest priority in the
Mac68k architecture. So, under heavy load, (such as disk or network activity)
clock interrupts will be lost and the Unix clock will not advance as it
should. MacPPC systems do not have this issue.
Mac OS gets around the time problem by always reading the hardware clock.
OpenBSD only reads the hardware clock at boot time and thereafter ignores it.
You may notice that, at shutdown, the kernel is not confident enough to write
the Unix time back into the hardware clock because this time loss problem is
well known.
A simple solution is to run rdate(8) on a regular basis, by having a crontab
entry for it. Another good place to launch rdate (8) is in your /etc/ppp/
ppp.linkup file if you are not permanently connected and are a PPP user.
See also: http://www.macbsd.com/macbsd/macbsd-docs/faq/faq-3.html#ss3.17
12.6.3 - My Mac68k system won't work with two disks
Yes, unfortunately, this is a known problem. This usually shows itself by
crashes shortly after the system goes multi-user, and the crash may not be
obviously related to the disk system. The solution is to only use one drive on
your Mac68k systems. A proper fix would be welcomed!
12.6.4 - The installer crashed during install
The Mac68k installer running on Mac OS will not install files to a "large"
partition. If any partition you are installing to is more than around 500M in
size, you can expect the following strange error:
Error on SCSIRead(), #5
pos = 0, i = 22, fs = /
alloccgblk: can't find blk in cyl
The solution to this is to first install a minimal system in a "small" root
partition, then boot OpenBSD and relocate things as desired.
So, let's say you want a 200M / partition. Create the root partition, create
the other partitions you want, newfs them all using the Mac OS utilities.
Install etc34.tgz and base34.tgz to this / partition.
Mount your other partitions on a temporary mount point, and copy over the
directories you want to them, as demonstrated here.
Now, modify /etc/fstab, reboot, and unpack the rest of the *.tgz files as
documented here.
Following this process, any size can be achieved for the non-root partitions.
12.7 - MacPPC
12.7.1 - Why is my bm(4) network adapter so slow?
The bm driver, supporting the BMAC chip used on some MacPPC systems (including
early iMacs) has issues when run at 100Mbps. It is highly recommended that you
force the driver to 10Mbps by using a "media 10baseT" option in your /etc/
hostname.bm0 file, or otherwise force it to 10Mbps at your hub or switch.
12.8 - MVME68k
[nothing yet]
12.9 - SPARC
[nothing yet]
12.10 - UltraSPARC (sparc64)
12.10.1 - My UltraSPARC won't boot from the floppy image
Only the Ultra 1/1e and Ultra 2 can boot any OS from floppy disk. Use CD-ROM,
Miniroot, or network boot to do your installation instead.
12.11 - DEC VAX
[nothing yet]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OpenBSD: faq12.html,v 1.50 2004/03/15 18:50:46 saad Exp $
==============================================================================
14 - Disk Setup
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
* 14.1 - Using OpenBSD's disklabel(8)
* 14.2 - Using OpenBSD's fdisk(8)
* 14.3 - Adding extra disks in OpenBSD
* 14.4 - How to swap to a file
* 14.5 - Soft Updates
* 14.6 - How does OpenBSD/i386 boot?
* 14.7 - What are the issues regarding large drives with OpenBSD?
* 14.8 - Installing Bootblocks - i386 specific
* 14.9 - Preparing for disaster: Backing up and Restoring from tape.
* 14.10 - Mounting disk images in OpenBSD
* 14.11 - Help! I'm getting errors with IDE DMA!
* 14.13 - RAID options with OpenBSD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.1 - Using OpenBSD's disklabel(8)
Table of Contents
* What is disklabel(8)?
* disklabel(8) during the OpenBSD install
* Common disklabel(8) uses.
What is disklabel(8)?
First be sure to read the disklabel(8) man page.
Disklabels are created to allow an efficient interface between your disk and
the disk drivers contained within the kernel. Labels hold certain information
about your disk, like your drive geometry and information about your
filesystems. This is then used by the bootstrap program to load the drive and
to know where filesystems are contained on the drive. Labels are also used in
conjunction with the filesystems to create a more efficient environment. You
can read more in-depth information about disklabel by reading the disklabel(5)
man page.
As an additional gain, using disklabel helps overcome architecture limitations
on disk partitioning. For example, on i386, you can only have 4 primary
partitions. (Partitions that other operating systems, such as Windows NT or
DOS can see.) With disklabel(8), you use one of these 'primary' partitions to
store *all* of your OpenBSD partitions (eg. 'swap', '/', '/usr' and '/var').
And you still have 3 more partitions available for other OSs!
disklabel(8) during OpenBSD's install
One of the major parts of OpenBSD's install is your initial creation of
labels. This comes (for i386 users) directly after using fdisk(1). During the
install you use disklabel to create your separate labels which will contain
your separate mountpoints. During the install, you can set your mountpoints
from within disklabel(8), but this isn't completely necessary considering you
will be prompted later to confirm you choices. But it does make your install
go just a little smoother.
Since this is during the install you won't have any existing labels, and they
will need to be created. The first label you will create is the label 'a'.
This label SHOULD be your where / will be mounted. You can see recommended
partitions that should be created and their sizes by reading FAQ 4, Space
Needed. For servers it is recommended that you create at least these label's
separately. For desktop users creating one mountpoint at / will probably
suffice. When initially creating your root partition ( 'a' label ), keep in
mind that you will need SOME space left for your swap label. Now that the
basics have been explained, here is an example of using disklabel during an
install. In this first example it is assumed that OpenBSD will be the only
operating system on this computer, and that a full install will be done.
If this disk is shared with other operating systems, those operating systems
should have a BIOS partition entry that spans the space they occupy completely.
For safety, also make sure all OpenBSD file systems are within the offset and
size specified in the 'A6' BIOS partition table. (By default, the disklabel
editor will try to enforce this). If you are unsure of how to use multiple
partitions properly (ie. separating /, /usr, /tmp, /var, /usr/local, and other
things) just split the space into a root and swap partition for now.
# using MBR partition 3: type A6 off 63 (0x3f) size 4991553 (0x4c2a41)
Treating sectors 63-16386300 as the OpenBSD portion of the disk.
You can use the 'b' command to change this.
Initial label editor (enter '?' for help at any prompt)
> d a
> a a
offset: [63] <Enter>
size: [16386237] 64M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 131040
FS type: [4.2BSD] <Enter>
mount point: [none] /
fragment size: [1024] <Enter>
block size: [8192] <Enter>
cpg: [16] <Enter>
> a b
offset: [131103] <Enter>
size: [16255197] 64M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 131040
FS type: [swap] <Enter>
At this point we have created a 64M root partition mounted at /, and a 64Meg
swap partition. Notice that the offset starts at sector 63. This is what you
want. When it comes to the size, disklabel will show your size in sectors,
however, you don't need to enter sizes in the same format. Like the example
above you can enter sizes in the manner of 64 Megabytes = 64M and 2 Gigabytes
= 2G. Disklabel will then round to the nearest cylinder. In the example above
you will also notice that disklabel assumes that label 'b' will be a swap.
This is a correct assumption as the GENERIC kernel is set to look for swap on
label 'b', and you should just follow this guideline and use 'b' as your swap
area.
The next example will take you through the creation of two more labels. This
means that it's not a complete install, as the size of these won't be enough
to install OpenBSD to its fullest. Showing the creation of all the partitions
would just be repetitive.
> a d
offset: [262143] <Enter>
size: [16124157] 64M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 131040
FS type: [4.2BSD] <Enter>
mount point: [none] /tmp
fragment size: [1024] <Enter>
block size: [8192] <Enter>
cpg: [16] <Enter>
> a e
offset: [393183] <Enter>
size: [15993117] 64M
Rounding to nearest cylinder: 131040
FS type: [4.2BSD] <Enter>
mount point: [none] /var
fragment size: [1024] <Enter>
block size: [8192] <Enter>
cpg: [16] <Enter>
In the above example, there are two things you might notice. One being that
the offset is automatically figured out for you to be the next in order. When
doing an install of this sort, you won't need to mess with changing the
offsets at all. Another difference you might notice will be that label 'c' has
been skipped. This is done for a reason, which is that label 'c' is a label
that represents the whole disk. For this reason you shouldn't deal with label
'c' in any way.
Once all your labels have been created all that's left to do is write the
labels to disk, and move on in the installation process. To write everything
and quit disklabel (and continue with the install) do:
> w
> q
Common uses for disklabel(8)
Once your system is installed, you shouldn't need to use disklabel too often.
But some times you will need to use disklabel when adding, removing or
restructuring your disks. One of the first things you will need to do is view
your current disklabel. To do this, simply type:
# disklabel wd0 >----- Or whatever disk device you'd like to view
# using MBR partition 3: type A6 off 64 (0x40) size 16777152 (0xffffc0)
# /dev/rwd0c:
type: ESDI
disk:
label: TOSHIBA MK2720FC
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 2633
total sectors: 2654064
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0 # milliseconds
track-to-track seek: 0 # milliseconds
drivedata: 0
16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg]
a: 2071440 65583 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 65*- 2120)
b: 65520 63 swap # (Cyl. 0*- 65)
c: 2654064 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 2632)
j: 512001 2137023 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 2120*- 2627*)
The above command simply allows you to view the existing disklabel, and
assuring that you dont mess anything up. ( Which we all need sometimes. ) But
to be able to make changes you must use the -E option with disklabel like so:
# disklabel -E wd0
This will bring you to a prompt, the same as the one that you used during the
OpenBSD install. Probably the single most important command at this prompt is
'?'. This will give you a list of possible options pertaining to disklabel.
You can even view the entire disklabel(8) man page with the 'M' command. From
this prompt, you will do all of your adding, deleting and changing of
partitions. For additional information read the disklabel(8) man page.
14.2 - Using fdisk(8)
First be sure to check the fdisk(8) man page.
Fdisk is a program to help with the maintenance of your partitions. This
program is used at install time to set up your OpenBSD partition (this
partition can contain several labels, each with filesystems/swap/etc.). It can
divide space on your drives and set one active. This program will usually be
used in Single User Mode ( boot -s ). Fdisk also sets the MBR on your various
hard disks.
For installation purposes, most times you'll only need ONE OpenBSD partition,
and then using disklabel to put a swap and a filesystem on it.
To just view your partition table using fdisk, use:
# fdisk sd0
Which will give an output similar to this:
Disk: sd0 geometry: 553/255/63 [8883945 Sectors]
Offset: 0 Signature: 0xAA55
Starting Ending LBA Info:
#: id C H S - C H S [ start: size ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*0: A6 3 0 1 - 552 254 63 [ 48195: 8835750 ] OpenBSD
1: 12 0 1 1 - 2 254 63 [ 63: 48132 ] Compaq Diag.
2: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0: 0 ] unused
In this example we are viewing the fdisk output of the first SCSI drive. We
can see the OpenBSD partition (A6) and its size. The * tells us that the
OpenBSD partition is a bootable partition.
In the previous example we just viewed our information. What if we want to
edit our partition table? Well, to do so we must use the -e flag. This will
bring up a command line prompt to interact with fdisk.
# fdisk -e wd0
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> help
help Command help list
manual Show entire OpenBSD man page for fdisk
reinit Re-initialize loaded MBR (to defaults)
setpid Set the identifier of a given table entry
disk Edit current drive stats
edit Edit given table entry
flag Flag given table entry as bootable
update Update machine code in loaded MBR
select Select extended partition table entry MBR
print Print loaded MBR partition table
write Write loaded MBR to disk
exit Exit edit of current MBR, without saving changes
quit Quit edit of current MBR, saving current changes
abort Abort program without saving current changes
fdisk: 1>
It is perfectly safe in fdisk to go in and explore, just make sure to answer N
to saving the changes and *DON'T* use the write command.
Here is an overview of the commands you can use when you choose the -e flag.
* help Display a list of commands that fdisk understands in the interactive
edit mode.
* reinit Initialize the currently selected, in-memory copy of the boot
block.
* disk Display the current drive geometry that fdisk has probed. You are
given a chance to edit it if you wish.
* setpid Change the partition identifier of the given partition table entry.
This command is particularly useful for reassigning an existing partition
to OpenBSD.
* edit Edit a given table entry in the memory copy of the current boot
block. You may edit either in BIOS geometry mode, or in sector offsets and
sizes.
* flag Make the given partition table entry bootable. Only one entry can be
marked bootable. If you wish to boot from an extended partition, you will
need to mark the partition table entry for the extended partition as
bootable.
* update Update the machine code in the memory copy of the currently
selected boot block.
* select Select and load into memory the boot block pointed to by the
extended partition table entry in the current boot block.
* print Print the currently selected in-memory copy of the boot block and
its MBR table to the terminal.
* write Write the in-memory copy of the boot block to disk. You will be
asked to confirm this operation.
* exit Exit the current level of fdisk, either returning to the previously
selected in-memory copy of a boot block, or exiting the program if there
is none.
* quit Exit the current level of fdisk, either returning to the previously
selected in-memory copy of a boot block, or exiting the program if there
is none. Unlike exit it does write the modified block out.
* abort Quit program without saving current changes.
14.3 - Adding extra disks in OpenBSD
Well once you get your disk installed PROPERLY you need to use fdisk(8) (i386
only) and disklabel(8) to set up your disk in OpenBSD.
For i386 folks, start with fdisk. Other architectures can ignore this. In the
below example we're adding a third SCSI drive to the system.
# fdisk -i sd2
This will initialize the disk's "real" partition table for exclusive use by
OpenBSD. Next you need to create a disklabel for it. This will seem confusing.
# disklabel -e sd2
(screen goes blank, your $EDITOR comes up)
type: SCSI
...bla...
sectors/track: 63
total sectors: 6185088
...bla...
16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg]
c: 6185088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 6135)
d: 1405080 63 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 0*- 1393*)
e: 4779945 1405143 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 1393*- 6135)
First, ignore the 'c' partition, it's always there and is for programs like
disklabel to function! Fstype for OpenBSD is 4.2BSD. Total sectors is the
total size of the disk. Say this is a 3 gigabyte disk. Three gigabytes in disk
manufacturer terms is 3000 megabytes. So divide 6185088/3000 (use bc(1)). You
get 2061. So, to make up partition sizes for a, d, e, f, g, ... just multiply
X*2061 to get X megabytes of space on that partition. The offset for your
first new partition should be the same as the "sectors/track" reported earlier
in disklabel's output. For us it is 63. The offset for each partition
afterwards should be a combination of the size of each partition and the
offset of each partition (Except the 'c' partition, since it has no play into
this equation.)
Or, if you just want one partition on the disk, say you will use the whole
thing for web storage or a home directory or something, just take the total
size of the disk and subtract the sectors per track from it. 6185088-63 =
6185025. Your partition is
d: 6185025 63 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16
If all this seems needlessly complex, you can just use disklabel -E to get the
same partitioning mode that you got on your install disk! There, you can just
use "96M" to specify "96 megabytes". (Or, if you have a disk big enough, 96G
for 96 gigs!) Unfortunately, the -E mode uses the BIOS disk geometry, not the
real disk geometry, and often times the two are not the same. To get around
this limitation, type 'g d' for 'geometry disk'. (Other options are 'g b' for
'geometry bios' and 'g u' for geometry user, or simply, what the label said
before disklabel made any changes.)
That was a lot. But you are not finished. Finally, you need to create the
filesystem on that disk using newfs(8).
# newfs sd2a
Or whatever your disk was named as per OpenBSD's disk numbering scheme. (Look
at the output from dmesg(8) to see what your disk was named by OpenBSD.)
Now figure out where you are going to mount this new partition you just
created. Say you want to put it on /u. First, make the directory /u. Then,
mount it.
# mount /dev/sd2a /u
Finally, add it to /etc/fstab(5).
/dev/sd2a /u ffs rw 1 1
What if you need to migrate an existing directory like /usr/local? You should
mount the new drive in /mnt and use cpio -pdum to copy /usr/local to the /mnt
directory. Edit the /etc/fstab(5) file to show that the /usr/local partition
is now /dev/sd2a (your freshly formatted partition.) Example:
/dev/sd2a /usr/local ffs rw 1 1
Reboot into single user mode with boot -s, move the existing /usr/local to /
usr/local-backup (or delete it if you feel lucky) and create an empty
directory /usr/local. Then reboot the system, and voila, the files are there!
14.4 - How to swap to a file
(Note: if you are looking to swap to a file because you are getting "virtual
memory exhausted" errors, you should try raising the per-process limits first
with csh's unlimit(1), or sh's ulimit(1).)
Swapping to a file doesn't require a custom built kernel, although that can
still be done, this faq will show you how to add swap space both ways.
Swapping to a file.
Swapping to a file is easiest and quickest way to get extra swap space setup.
The file must not reside on a filesystem which has SoftUpdates enabled (they
are disabled by default). To start out, you can see how much swap you
currently have and how much you are using with the swapctl(8) utility. You can
do this by using the command:
$ swapctl -l
Device 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Priority
swap_device 65520 8 65512 0% 0
This shows the devices currently being used for swapping and their current
statistics. In the above example there is only one device named "swap_device".
This is the predefined area on disk that is used for swapping. (Shows up as
partition b when viewing disklabels) As you can also see in the above example,
that device isn't getting much use at the moment. But for the purposes of this
document, we will act as if an extra 32M is needed.
The first step to setting up a file as a swap device is to create the file.
It's best to do this with the dd(1) utility. Here is an example of creating
the file /var/swap that is 32M large.
$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap bs=1k count=32768
32768+0 records in
32768+0 records out
33554432 bytes transferred in 20 secs (1677721 bytes/sec)
Once this has been done, we can turn on swapping to that device. Use the
following command to turn on swapping to this device
$ sudo chmod 600 /var/swap
$ sudo swapctl -a /var/swap
Now we need to check to see if it has been correctly added to the list of our
swap devices.
$ swapctl -l
Device 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Priority
swap_device 65520 8 65512 0% 0
/var/swap 65536 0 65536 0% 0
Total 131056 8 131048 0%
Now that the file is setup and swapping is being done, you need to add a line
to your /etc/fstab file so that this file is configured on the next boot time
also. If this line is not added, your won't have this swap device configured.
$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1
/var/swap /var/swap swap sw 0 0
Swapping via a vnode device
This is a more permanent solution to adding more swap space. To swap to a file
permanently, first make a kernel with vnd0c as swap. If you have wd0a as root
filesystem, wd0b is the previous swap, use this line in the kernel
configuration file (refer to compiling a new kernel if in doubt):
config bsd root on wd0a swap on wd0b and vnd0c dumps on wd0b
After this is done, the file which will be used for swapping needs to be
created. You should do this by using the same command as in the above
examples.
$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/swap bs=1k count=32768
32768+0 records in
32768+0 records out
33554432 bytes transferred in 20 secs (1677721 bytes/sec)
Now your file is in place, you need to add the file to you /etc/fstab. Here is
a sample line to boot with this device as swap on boot.
$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1
/dev/vnd0c none swap sw 0 0
At this point your computer needs to be rebooted so that the kernel changes
can take place. Once this has been done it's time to configure the device as
swap. To do this you will use vnconfig(8).
$ sudo vnconfig -c -v vnd0 /var/swap
vnd0: 33554432 bytes on /var/swap
Now for the last step, turning on swapping to that device. We will do this
just like in the above examples, using swapctl(8). Then we will check to see
if it was correctly added to our list of swap devices.
$ sudo swapctl -a /dev/vnd0c
$ swapctl -l
Device 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Priority
swap_device 65520 8 65512 0% 0
/dev/vnd0c 65536 0 65536 0% 0
Total 131056 8 131048 0%
14.5 - Soft Updates
Soft Updates is based on an idea proposed by Greg Ganger and Yale Patt and
developed for FreeBSD by Kirk McKusick. SoftUpdates imposes a partial ordering
on the buffer cache operations which permits the requirement for synchronous
writing of directory entries to be removed from the FFS code. Thus, a large
performance increase is seen in disk writing performance.
The potential of background fsck(8), using Soft Updates is not yet realised in
OpenBSD, so fsck(8) is still required after an unclean shutdown. This may be
changed in future versions.
To use Soft Updates, your kernel must have
option FFS_SOFTUPDATES
compiled in, this is already in place on GENERIC.
Enabling soft updates must be done with a mount-time option. When mounting a
partition with the mount(8) utility, you can specify that you wish to have
soft updates enabled on that partition. Below is a sample /etc/fstab(5) entry
that has one partition sd0a that we wish to have mounted with soft updates.
/dev/sd0a / ffs rw,softdep 1 1
Note to sparc users: Do not enable soft updates on sun4 or sun4c machines.
These architectures support only a very limited amount of kernel memory and
cannot use this feature. However, sun4m machines are fine.
14.6 - How does OpenBSD/i386 boot?
The boot process for OpenBSD/i386 is not trivial, and understanding how it
works can be useful to troubleshoot a problem when things don't work. There
are four key pieces to the boot process:
1. Master Boot Record (MBR): The Master Boot Record is the first physical
sector (512 bytes) on the disk. It contains the primary partition table
and a small program to load the Partition Boot Record (PBR). Note that in
some environments, the term "MBR" is used to refer to only the code
portion of this first block on the disk, rather than the whole first block
(including the partition table). It is critical to understand the meaning
of "initialize the MBR" -- in the terminology of OpenBSD, it would involve
rewriting the entire MBR sector, not just the code, as it might on some
systems. You will rarely want to do this. Instead, use fdisk(8)'s "-u"
command line option ("fdisk -u wd0").
While OpenBSD includes an MBR, you are not obliged to use it, as virtually
any MBR can boot OpenBSD. The MBR is manipulated by the fdisk(8) program,
which is used both to edit the partition table, and also to install the
MBR code on the disk.
OpenBSD's MBR announces itself with the message:
Using Drive: 0 Partition: 3
showing the disk and partition it is about to load the PBR from.
2. Partition Boot Record (PBR): The Partition Boot Record, also called the
PBR or biosboot(8) (after the name of the file that holds the code) is the
first physical sector of the OpenBSD partition of the disk. The PBR is the
"first-stage boot loader" for OpenBSD. It is loaded by the MBR code, and
has the task of loading the OpenBSD second-stage boot loader, boot(8).
Like the MBR, the PBR is a very tiny section of code and data, only 512
bytes, total. That's not enough to have a fully filesystem-aware
application, so rather than having the PBR locate /boot on the disk, the
BIOS-accessible location of /boot is physically coded into the PBR at
installation time.
The PBR is installed by installboot, which is further described later in
this document. The PBR announces itself with the message:
reading boot....
printing the dots as it reads sectors from the disk.
3. Second Stage Boot Loader, /boot: /boot is loaded by the PBR, and has the
task of accessing the OpenBSD file system through the machine's BIOS, and
locating and loading the actual kernel. boot(8) also passes various
options and information to the kernel.
boot(8) is an interactive program. After it loads, it attempts to locate
and read /etc/boot.conf, if it exists (which it does not on a default
install), and processes any commands in it. Unless instructed otherwise by
/etc/boot.conf, it then gives the user a prompt:
probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm mem[636k 190M a20=on]
disk: fd0 hd0+
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.02
boot>
It gives the user (by default) five seconds to start giving it other
tasks, but if none are given before the timeout, it starts its default
behavior: loading the kernel, bsd, from the root partition of the first
hard drive. The second-stage boot loader probes (examines) your system
hardware, through the BIOS (as the OpenBSD kernel is not loaded). Above,
you can see a few things it looked for and found:
+ pc0 - the standard keyboard and video display of a i386 system.
+ com0, com1 - Two serial ports
+ apm - Advanced Power Management BIOS functions
+ 636k 190M - The amount of conventional (below 1M) and extended (above
1M) memory it found
+ fd0 hd0+ - The BIOS disk devices found, in this case, one floppy and
one hard disk.
The '+' character after the "hd0" indicates that the BIOS has told /boot
that this disk can be accessed via LBA. When doing a first-time install,
you will sometimes see a '*' after a hard disk -- this indicates a disk
that does not seem to have a valid OpenBSD disk label on it.
4. Kernel: /bsd: This is the goal of the boot process, to have the OpenBSD
kernel loaded into RAM and properly running. Once the kernel has loaded,
OpenBSD accesses the hardware directly, no longer through the BIOS.
So, the very start of the boot process could look like this:
Using Drive: 0 Partition: 3 <- MBR
reading boot.... <- PBR
probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm mem[636k 190M a20=on] <- /boot
disk: fd0 hd0+
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.02
boot>
booting hd0a:/bsd 4464500+838332 [58+204240+181750]=0x56cfd0
entry point at 0x100120
[ using 386464 bytes of bsd ELF symbol table ]
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 <- Kernel
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2003 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org
OpenBSD 3.4 (GENERIC) #18: Wed Sep 17 03:34:47 MDT 2003
...
What can go wrong
* Bad/invalid/incompatible MBR: Usually, a used hard disk has some MBR code
in place, but if the disk is new or moved from a different platform, AND
you don't answer "Yes" to the "Use entire disk" question of the
installation process, you may end up with a disk without a valid MBR, and
thus, will not be bootable, even though it has a valid partition table.
You may install the OpenBSD MBR on your hard disk using the fdisk program.
Boot from your install media, choose "Shell" to get a command prompt:
# fdisk -u wd0
You may also install a specific MBR to disk using fdisk:
# fdisk -u -f /usr/mdec/mbr wd0
which will install the file /usr/mdec/mbr as your system's MBR. This
particular file on a standard OpenBSD install happens to be the standard
MBR that is also built into fdisk, but any other MBR could be specified
here.
* Invalid /boot location installed in PBR: When installboot(8) installs the
partition boot record, it writes the physical location of /boot's disk
sectors into the PBR. Therefore, deleting and replacing /boot without
re-running installboot(8) will render your system unbootable, as the PBR
will load whatever happens to be at the blocks specified in it, which will
almost certainly no longer be the second-stage boot loader! Since /boot is
being read using BIOS calls, if you alter the drive's geometry (i.e.,
taking it out of one computer that uses CHS translation and moving it into
one that uses LBA translation, or even changing a translation option in
your BIOS), it will appear to the BIOS to be in a different location (a
different numerical block must be accessed to get the same data from the
disk), so again, you will have to run installboot(8) before the system can
be rebooted. As the PBR is very small, its range of error messages is
pretty limited:
+ Read Error -- BIOS returned an error when trying to read a block from
the disk. Could be a physical problem with the disk, or an invalid
sector was called for (i.e., geometry problem).
+ Bad magic -- An invalid magic(5) number was read in the second-stage
bootloader's header. This generally means whatever it was that was
read in was NOT /boot. Usually, this is due to a drive geometry
problem, having replaced /boot on your disk or ignoring the 8G or BIOS
limitations of your system, and having /boot end up somewhere the PBR
can't reach it.
For more information on the i386 boot process, see
* boot_i386(8)
* http://www.ata-atapi.com/hiw.htm Hale Landis' "How it Works" documents.
14.7 - What are the issues regarding large drives with OpenBSD?
OpenBSD has support for file systems of sizes much larger than any currently
or soon to be available hard disks, however there are limitations on some
interfaces which are smaller than the theoretical maximum of OpenBSD.
Not all hardware combinations are possible, of course. A new 250G IDE hard
disk will not work on an older (pre >137G standards) interfaces, and some very
old SCSI adapters have been seen to have problems with more modern drives. You
must respect the abilities of your hardware, of course.
Partition size and location limitations
Unfortunately, the full ability of the OS isn't available until AFTER the OS
has been loaded into memory, and the booting process introduces limits of its
own. The boot process has to utilize (and is thus limited by) the system's
boot ROM. The OpenBSD i386 first-stage boot loader (biosboot(8)) also has its
own internal 8G limitation, from an older BIOS limit.
For this reason, the entire /bsd file (the kernel) must be located on the disk
within the boot ROM addressable area, or within the first 8G of the disk,
whichever is smaller. This means that on some older i386 systems, the root
partition must be completely within the first 504M, but for most newer
computers, the root partition may be anywhere within the first 8G.
Note that it is possible to install a 40G drive on an old 486 and load OpenBSD
on it as one huge partition, and think you have successfully violated the
above rule. However, it might come back to haunt you in a most unpleasant way:
* You install on the 40G / partition. It works, because the base OS and all
its files (including /bsd) are within the first 504M.
* You use the system, and end up with more than 504M of files on it.
* You upgrade, build your own kernel, whatever, and copy your new /bsd over
the old one.
* You reboot.
* You get a message such as "bad magic"
Why? Because when you copied "over" the new /bsd file, it didn't overwrite the
old one, it got relocated to a new location on the disk, probably outside the
504M range the BIOS supported. The boot loader was unable to fetch the file /
bsd, and the system hung.
To get OpenBSD to boot, the boot loaders (biosboot(8) and /boot in the case of
i386) and the kernel (/bsd) must be within the boot ROM's supported range, and
within their own abilities. To play it safe, the rule is simple:
The entire root partition must be within the computer's BIOS (or boot ROM)
addressable space or within the first 8G, whichever is smaller.
Note: the OpenBSD/i386 8G limit has been removed in -current. You must still
respect your system's BIOS limit, however
This is another good reason to partition your hard disk, rather than using one
large partition.
fsck(8) time and memory requirements
Another consideration with large file systems is the time and memory required
to fsck(8) the file system after a crash or power interruption. One should not
put a 120G file system on a system with 32M of RAM and expect it to
successfully fsck(1) after a crash. A rough guideline is the system should
have at least 1M of available memory for every 1G of disk space to
successfully fsck the disk. The time required to fsck the drive may become a
problem as the file system size expands.
14.8 - Installing Bootblocks - i386 specific
Older versions of MS-DOS can only deal with disk geometries of 1024 cylinders
or less. Since virtually all modern disks have more than 1024 cylinders, most
SCSI BIOS chips (which come on the SCSI controller card) and IDE BIOS (which
is part of the rest of the PC BIOS) have an option (sometimes the default) to
"translate" the real disk geometry into something that fits within MS-DOS'
ability. However, not all BIOS chips "translate" the geometry in the same way.
If you change your BIOS (either with a new motherboard or a new SCSI
controller), and the new one uses a different "translated" geometry, you will
be unable to load the second-stage boot loader (and thus unable to load the
kernel). (This is because the first-stage boot loader contains a list of the
blocks that comprise /boot in terms of the original "translated" geometry). If
you are using IDE disks, and you make changes to your BIOS settings, you can
(unknowingly) change its translation also (most IDE BIOS offer 3 different
translations). To fix your boot block so that you can boot normally, just put
a boot floppy in your drive (or use a bootable CD-ROM) and at the boot prompt,
type "b hd0a:/bsd" to force it to boot from the first hard disk (and not the
floppy). Your machine should come up normally. You now need to update the
first-stage boot loader to see the new geometry (and re-write the boot block
accordingly).
Our example will assume your boot disk is sd0 (but for IDE it would be wd0,
etc..):
# cd /usr/mdec; ./installboot /boot biosboot sd0
If installboot complains that it is unable to read the BIOS geometry, at the
boot> prompt you may issue the "machine diskinfo" (or "ma di" for short)
command to print the information you need. Feed the "heads" and "secs" values
to installboot's -h and -s flags, respectively, so that the modified
installboot command is the following:
# cd /usr/mdec; ./installboot -h <heads> -s <secs> /boot biosboot sd0
If a newer version of bootblocks are required, you will need to compile these
yourself. To do so simply:
# cd /sys/arch/i386/stand/
# make && make install
# cd /usr/mdec; cp ./boot /boot
# ./installboot /boot biosboot sd0 (or whatever device your hard disk is)
14.9 - Preparing for disaster: Backing up and Restoring from tape
Introduction:
If you plan on running what might be called a production server, it is
advisable to have some form of backup in the event one of your fixed disk
drives fails.
This information will assist you in using the standard dump(8)/restore(8)
utilities provided with OpenBSD. A more advanced backup utility called
"Amanda" is also available through ports for backing up multiple servers to
one tape drive. In most environments dump(8)/restore(8) is enough. However, if
you have a need to backup multiple machines to one tape, Amanda might be worth
investigating in the future.
The device examples in this document are for a configuration that uses both
SCSI disks and tape. In a production environment, SCSI disks are recommended
over IDE due to the way in which they handle bad blocks. That is not to say
this information is useless if you are using an IDE disk or other type of tape
drive, your device names will simply differ slightly. For example sd0a would
be wd0a in an IDE based system.
Backing up to tape:
Backing up to tape requires knowledge of where your file systems are mounted.
You can determine how your filesystems are mounted using the mount(8) command
at your shell prompt. You should get output similar to this:
# mount
/dev/sd0a on / type ffs (local)
/dev/sd0h on /usr type ffs (local)
In this example, the root (/) filesystem resides physically on sd0a which
indicates SCSI fixed disk 0, partition a. The /usr filesystem resides on sd0h,
which indicates SCSI fixed disk 0, partition h.
Another example of a more advanced mount table might be:
# mount
/dev/sd0a on / type ffs (local)
/dev/sd0d on /var type ffs (local)
/dev/sd0e on /home type ffs (local)
/dev/sd0h on /usr type ffs (local)
In this more advanced example, the root (/) filesystem resides physically on
sd0a. The /var filesystem resides on sd0d, the /home filesystem on sd0e and
finally /usr on sd0h.
To backup your machine you will need to feed dump the name of each fixed disk
partition. Here is an example of the commands needed to backup the simpler
mount table listed above:
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0a
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0h
# mt -f /dev/rst0 rewind
For the more advanced mount table example, you would use something similar to:
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0a
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0d
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0e
# /sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0h
# mt -f /dev/rst0 rewind
You can review the dump(8) man page to learn exactly what each command line
switch does. Here is a brief description of the parameters used above:
* 0 - Perform a level 0 dump, get everything
* a - Attempt to automatically determine tape media length
* u - Update the file /etc/dumpdates to indicate when backup was last
performed
* f - Which tape device to use (/dev/nrst0 in this case)
Finally which partition to backup (/dev/rsd0a, etc)
The mt(1) command is used at the end to rewind the drive. Review the mt man
page for more options (such as eject).
If you are unsure of your tape device name, use dmesg to locate it. An example
tape drive entry in dmesg might appear similar to:
st0 at scsibus0 targ 5 lun 0: <ARCHIVE, Python 28388-XXX, 5.28>
You may have noticed that when backing up, the tape drive is accessed as
device name "nrst0" instead of the "st0" name that is seen in dmesg. When you
access st0 as nrst0 you are accessing the same physical tape drive but telling
the drive to not rewind at the end of the job and access the device in raw
mode. To back up multiple file systems to a single tape, be sure you use the
non-rewind device, if you use a rewind device (rst0) to back up multiple file
systems, you'll end up overwriting the prior filesystem with the next one dump
tries to write to tape. You can find a more elaborate description of various
tape drive devices in the dump man page.
If you wanted to write a small script called "backup", it might look something
like this:
echo " Starting Full Backup..."
/sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0a
/sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0d
/sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0e
/sbin/dump -0au -f /dev/nrst0 /dev/rsd0h
echo
echo -n " Rewinding Drive, Please wait..."
mt -f /dev/rst0 rewind
echo "Done."
echo
If scheduled nightly backups are desired, cron(8) could be used to launch your
backup script automatically.
It will also be helpful to document (on a scrap of paper) how large each file
system needs to be. You can use df -h to determine how much space each
partition is currently using. This will be handy when the drive fails and you
need to recreate your partition table on the new drive.
Restoring your data will also help reduce fragmentation. To ensure you get all
files, the best way of backing up is rebooting your system in single user
mode. File systems do not need to be mounted to be backed up. Don't forget to
mount root (/) r/w after rebooting in single user mode or your dump will fail
when trying to write out dumpdates. Enter bsd -s at the boot> prompt for
single user mode.
Viewing the contents of a dump tape:
After you've backed up your file systems for the first time, it would be a
good idea to briefly test your tape and be sure the data on it is as you
expect it should be.
You can use the following example to review a catalog of files on a dump tape:
# /sbin/restore -tvs 1 -f /dev/rst0
This will cause a list of files that exist on the 1st partition of the dump
tape to be listed. Following along from the above examples, 1 would be your
root (/) file system.
To see what resides on the 2nd tape partition and send the output to a file,
you would use a command similar to:
# /sbin/restore -tvs 2 -f /dev/rst0 > /home/me/list.txt
If you have a mount table like the simple one, 2 would be /usr, if yours is a
more advanced mount table 2 might be /var or another fs. The sequence number
matches the order in which the file systems are written to tape.
Restoring from tape:
The example scenario listed below would be useful if your fixed drive has
failed completely. In the event you want to restore a single file from tape,
review the restore man page and pay attention to the interactive mode
instructions.
If you have prepared properly, replacing a disk and restoring your data from
tape can be a very quick process. The standard OpenBSD install/boot floppy
already contains the required restore utility as well as the binaries required
to partition and make your new drive bootable. In most cases, this floppy and
your most recent dump tape is all you'll need to get back up and running.
After physically replacing the failed disk drive, the basic steps to restore
your data are as follows:
* Boot from the OpenBSD install/boot floppy. At the menu selection, choose
Shell. Write protect and insert your most recent back up tape into the
drive.
* Using ther fdisk(8)r command, create a primary OpenBSD partition on this
newly installed drive. Example:
# fdisk -e sd0
See fdisk FAQ for more info.
* Using the disklabel command, recreate your OpenBSD partition table inside
that primary OpenBSD partition you just created with fdisk. Example:
# disklabel -E sd0
(Don't forget swap, see disklabel FAQ for more info)
* Use the newfs command to build a clean file system on each partition you
created in the above step. Example:
# newfs /dev/rsd0a
# newfs /dev/rsd0h
* Mount your newly prepared root (/) file system on /mnt. Example:
# mount /dev/sd0a /mnt
* Change into that mounted root file system and start the restore process.
Example:
# cd /mnt
# restore -rs 1 -f /dev/rst0
* You'll want this new disk to be bootable, use the following to write a new
MBR to your drive. Example:
# fdisk -i sd0
* In addition to writing a new MBR to the drive, you will need to install
boot blocks to boot from it. The following is a brief example:
# cp /usr/mdec/boot /mnt/boot
# /usr/mdec/installboot -v /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/biosboot sd0
* Your new root file system on the fixed disk should be ready enough so you
can boot it and continue restoring the rest of your file systems. Since
your operating system is not complete yet, be sure you boot back up with
single user mode. At the shell prompt, issue the following commands to
unmount and halt the system:
# umount /mnt
# halt
* Remove the install/boot floppy from the drive and reboot your system. At
the OpenBSD boot> prompt, issue the following command:
boot> bsd -s
The bsd -s will cause the kernel to be started in single user mode which
will only require a root (/) file system.
* Assuming you performed the above steps correctly and nothing has gone
wrong you should end up at a prompt asking you for a shell path or press
return. Press return to use sh. Next, you'll want to remount root in r/w
mode as opposed to read only. Issue the following command:
# mount -u -w /
* Once you have remounted in r/w mode you can continue restoring your other
file systems. Example:
(simple mount table)
# mount /dev/sd0h /usr; cd /usr; restore -rs 2 -f /dev/rst0
(more advanced mount table)
# mount /dev/sd0d /var; cd /var; restore -rs 2 -f /dev/rst0
# mount /dev/sd0e /home; cd /home; restore -rs 3 -f /dev/rst0
# mount /dev/sd0h /usr; cd /usr; restore -rs 4 -f /dev/rst0
You could use "restore rvsf" instead of just rsf to view names of objects
as they are extracted from the dump set.
* Finally after you finish restoring all your other file systems to disk,
reboot into multiuser mode. If everything went as planned your system will
be back to the state it was in as of your most recent back up tape and
ready to use again.
14.10 - Mounting disk images in OpenBSD
To mount a disk image (ISO images, disk images created with dd, etc) in
OpenBSD you must configure a vnd(4) device. For example, if you have an ISO
image located at /tmp/ISO.image, you would take the following steps to mount
the image.
# vnconfig svnd0 /tmp/ISO.image
# mount -t cd9660 /dev/svnd0c /mnt
Notice that, since this image is a CD image you must specify type of cd9660
when mounting it. This is true, no matter what type, e.g. you must use type
ffs when mounting disk images.
To unmount the image use the following commands.
# umount /mnt
# vnconfig -u svnd0
For more information, refer to the vnconfig(8) man page.
14.11 - Help! I'm getting errors with IDE DMA!
DMA IDE transfers, supported by pciide(4) are unreliable with many
combinations of hardware. Until recently, most "mainstream" operating systems
that claimed to support DMA transfers with IDE drives did not ship with that
feature active by default due to unreliable hardware. Now many of these same
machines are being used for OpenBSD.
OpenBSD is aggressive and attempts to use the highest DMA Mode it can
configure. This will cause corruption of data transfers in some configurations
because of buggy motherboard chipsets, buggy drives, and/or noise on the
cables. Luckily, Ultra-DMA modes protect data transfers with a CRC to detect
corruption. When the Ultra-DMA CRC fails, OpenBSD will print an error message
and try the operation again.
wd2a: aborted command, interface CRC error reading fsbn 64 of 64-79
(wd2 bn 127; cn 0 tn 2 sn 1), retrying
After failing a couple times, OpenBSD will downgrade to a slower (hopefully
more reliable) Ultra-DMA mode. If Ultra-DMA mode 0 is hit, then the drive
downgrades to PIO mode.
UDMA errors are often caused by low quality or damaged cables. Cable problems
should usually be the first suspect if you get many DMA errors or unexpectedly
low DMA performance. It is also a bad idea to put the CD-ROM on the same
channel with a hard disk.
If replacing cables does not resolve the problem and OpenBSD does not
successfully downgrade, or the process causes your machine to lock hard, or
causes excessive messages on the console and in the logs, you may wish to
force the system to use a lower level of DMA or UDMA by default. This can be
done by using UKC or config(8) to change the flags on the wd(4) device.
14.13 - RAID options for OpenBSD
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) gives an opportunity to use
multiple drives to give better performance, capacity and/or redundancy than
one can get out of a single drive alone. While a full discussion of the
benefits and risks of RAID are outside the scope of this article, there are a
couple points that are important to make here:
* RAID has nothing to do with backup.
* By itself, RAID will not eliminate down-time.
If this is new information to you, this is not a good starting point for your
exploration of RAID.
Software Options
OpenBSD includes RAIDframe, a software RAID solution. Documentation for it can
be found in the following places:
* FAQ 11, RAID
* RAIDframe Homepage
* man page for raidctl(8)
* man page for raid(4)
The root partition can be directly mirrored by OpenBSD using the
"Autoconfiguration" option of RAIDframe.
Hardware Options
Many OpenBSD platforms include support for various hardware RAID products. The
options vary by platform, see the appropriate hardware support page (listed
here).
Another option available for many platforms is one of the many products which
make multiple drives act as a single IDE or SCSI drive, and are then plugged
into a standard IDE or SCSI adapter. These devices can work on virtually any
hardware platform that supports either SCSI or IDE.
Some manufacturers of these products:
* Arco
* Accusys
* Maxtronic
* Infortrend
(Note: these are just products that OpenBSD users have reported using -- this
is not any kind of endorsement, nor is it an exhaustive list.)
Non-Options
An often asked question on the mail lists is "Are the Promise or HighPoint IDE
RAID controllers supported?". The answer is "No". These cards and chips are
not true hardware RAID controllers, but rather BIOS-assisted boot of a
software RAID. As OpenBSD already supports software RAID in a
hardware-independent way, there isn't much desire among the OpenBSD developers
to implement special support for these cards.
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