The NetBSD Guide The NetBSD Developers Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Federico Lupi Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 The NetBSD Foundation All brand and product names used in this guide are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. NetBSD® is a registered trademark of The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. Published: 2024/01/01 06:49:50 $NetBSD: netbsd-en.txt,v 1.94 2024/02/21 17:17:13 gutteridge Exp $ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Purpose of this guide I. About NetBSD 1. What is NetBSD? 1.1. The story of NetBSD 1.2. NetBSD features 1.3. Supported platforms 1.4. NetBSD's target users 1.5. Applications for NetBSD 1.6. How to get NetBSD II. System installation and related issues 2. Installing NetBSD: Preliminary considerations and preparations 2.1. Preliminary considerations 2.1.1. Dual booting 2.1.2. NetBSD on emulation and virtualization 2.2. Install preparations 2.2.1. The INSTALL document 2.2.2. Partitions 2.2.3. Hard disk space requirements 2.2.4. Network settings 2.2.5. Backup your data and operating systems! 2.2.6. Preparing the installation media 2.3. Checklist 3. Example installation 3.1. Introduction 3.2. The installation process 3.3. Keyboard layout 3.4. Starting the installation 3.5. MBR partitions 3.6. Disklabel partitions 3.7. Setting the disk name 3.8. Last chance! 3.9. The disk preparation process 3.10. Installation type 3.11. Choosing the installation medium 3.11.1. Installing from CD-ROM / DVD / install image media 3.11.2. Installing from an unmounted file system 3.11.3. Installing via FTP and Network configuration 3.11.4. Installing via NFS 3.12. Extracting sets 3.13. System configuration 3.14. Finishing the installation 4. Upgrading NetBSD 4.1. Using sysinst 4.1.1. Overview 4.1.2. The INSTALL document 4.1.3. Performing the upgrade 4.2. Using sysupgrade III. System configuration, administration and tuning 5. The first steps on NetBSD 5.1. Troubleshooting 5.1.1. Boot problems 5.1.2. Misconfiguration of /etc/rc.conf 5.2. The man command 5.3. Editing configuration files 5.4. Login 5.5. Changing the root password 5.6. Adding users 5.7. Shadow passwords 5.8. Changing the keyboard layout 5.9. System time 5.10. Secure Shell (ssh(1)) 5.11. Basic configuration in /etc/rc.conf 5.12. Basic network settings 5.13. Mounting a CD-ROM 5.14. Mounting a floppy 5.15. Installing additional software 5.16. Security alerts 5.17. Stopping and rebooting the system 6. Editing 6.1. Introducing vi 6.1.1. The vi interface 6.1.2. Switching to Edit Mode 6.1.3. Switching Modes & Saving Buffers to Files 6.1.4. Yanking and Putting 6.1.5. Navigation in the Buffer 6.1.6. Searching a File, the Alternate Navigational Aid 6.1.7. A Sample Session 6.2. Configuring vi 6.2.1. Extensions to .exrc 6.2.2. Documentation 6.3. Using tags with vi 7. The rc.d System 7.1. Basics 7.2. The rc.d Scripts 7.2.1. Packages installing rc.d scripts 7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts 7.4. Additional Reading 8. Console drivers 8.1. wscons 8.1.1. wsdisplay 8.1.2. wskbd 8.1.3. wsmouse 9. The X Window System 9.1. What is X11 / Xorg? 9.2. Configuration 9.3. The keyboard 9.4. The monitor 9.5. Starting X 9.6. Customizing X 9.7. Other window managers or desktop environments 9.8. Graphical login with xdm 9.9. Using multiple or remote X servers 9.10. Further resources 10. Audio 10.1. Configuring the default audio device 10.2. Configuring the mixer and volume 10.2.1. Setting default mixer settings on boot 10.3. Pseudo audio devices 10.4. Recording and playback commands 10.4.1. audioplay(1) 10.4.2. audiorecord(1) 10.4.3. audioctl(1) 10.5. MIDI support 10.5.1. midirecord(1) 10.5.2. midiplay(1) 10.6. Intel HD Audio devices 10.6.1. Built-in and jacks: DACs/ADCs 10.6.2. HDMI/DisplayPort audio 11. Power management 11.1. Basic power management commands 11.1.1. Powering off or rebooting the system 11.1.2. Using ACPI sleep states (suspend and resume) 11.1.3. Suspending and resuming individual devices 11.1.4. Adjusting CPU frequency at runtime 11.1.5. Using IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) power saving mode 11.2. Sensors and monitoring 11.3. An introduction to powerd 11.3.1. Example: using powerd to suspend on lid close 11.3.2. Example: reducing CPU frequency when unplugged 12. Printing 12.1. Enabling the printer daemon 12.2. Configuring /etc/printcap 12.3. Configuring Ghostscript 12.4. Printer management commands 12.5. Remote printing 13. Using removable media 13.1. Initializing and using USB flash drives 13.2. Initializing and using floppy disks 13.3. How to use a ZIP disk 13.4. Reading data CDs with NetBSD 13.5. Reading multi-session CDs with NetBSD 13.6. Allowing normal users to access CDs 13.7. Mounting an ISO image 13.8. Using video CDs with NetBSD 13.9. Using audio CDs with NetBSD 13.10. Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD 13.11. Using a CD-R writer with data CDs 13.12. Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs 13.13. Creating an audio CD from MP3s 13.14. Copying an audio CD 13.15. Copying a data CD with two drives 13.16. Using CD-RW rewritables 13.17. DVD support 13.18. Creating ISO images from a CD 13.19. Getting volume information from CDs and ISO images 14. The cryptographic device driver (CGD) 14.1. Overview 14.1.1. Why use disk encryption? 14.1.2. Logical Disk Drivers 14.1.3. Availability 14.2. Components of the Crypto-Graphic Disk system 14.2.1. Kernel driver pseudo-device 14.2.2. Ciphers 14.2.3. Obsolete Ciphers 14.2.4. Verification Methods 14.3. Example: encrypting your disk 14.3.1. Preparing the disk 14.3.2. Scrubbing the disk 14.3.3. Creating the cgd 14.3.4. Modifying configuration files 14.3.5. Restoring data 14.4. Example: encrypted CDs/DVDs 14.4.1. Creating an encrypted CD/DVD 14.4.2. Using an encrypted CD/DVD 14.5. Example: encrypted iSCSI devices 14.5.1. Creating an encrypted iSCSI device 14.5.2. Device Initialisation 14.5.3. Unmounting the Encrypted Device 14.5.4. Normal Usage 14.6. Suggestions and Warnings 14.6.1. Using a random-key cgd for swap 14.6.2. Warnings 14.7. Further Reading 15. Concatenated Disk Device (CCD) configuration 15.1. Install physical media 15.2. Configure Kernel Support 15.3. Disklabel each volume member of the CCD 15.4. Configure the CCD 15.5. Initialize the CCD device 15.6. Create a 4.2BSD/UFS filesystem on the new CCD device 15.7. Mount the filesystem 16. NetBSD RAIDframe 16.1. RAIDframe Introduction 16.1.1. About RAIDframe 16.1.2. A warning about Data Integrity, Backups, and High Availability 16.1.3. Getting Help 16.2. Setup RAIDframe Support 16.2.1. Kernel Support 16.2.2. Power Redundancy and Disk Caching 16.3. Example: RAID-1 Root Disk 16.3.1. Pseudo-Process Outline 16.3.2. Hardware Review 16.3.3. Initial Install on Disk0/wd0 16.3.4. Preparing Disk1/wd1 16.3.5. Initializing the RAID Device 16.3.6. Setting up Filesystems 16.3.7. Migrating System to RAID 16.3.8. The first boot with RAID 16.3.9. Adding Disk0/wd0 to RAID 16.3.10. Testing Boot Blocks 17. NetBSD Logical Volume Manager (LVM) configuration 17.1. Anatomy of NetBSD Logical Volume Manager 17.2. Install physical media 17.3. Configure Kernel Support 17.4. Disklabel each physical volume member of the LVM 17.5. Create Physical Volumes 17.6. Create Volume Group 17.7. Create Logical Volume 17.8. Example: LVM with Volume groups located on raid1 17.8.1. Loading Device-Mapper driver 17.8.2. Preparing raid1 installation 17.8.3. Creating PV, VG on raid disk 17.8.4. Creating LV's from VG located on raid disk 17.8.5. Integration of LV's in to the system 18. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) 18.1. About 18.2. Introduction 18.3. Terms and conventions 18.3.1. Definitions 18.3.2. Usage examples 18.4. PAM Essentials 18.4.1. Facilities and primitives 18.4.2. Modules 18.4.3. Chains and policies 18.4.4. Transactions 18.5. PAM Configuration 18.5.1. PAM policy files 18.5.2. Breakdown of a configuration line 18.5.3. Policies 18.6. PAM modules 18.6.1. Common Modules 18.6.2. NetBSD-specific PAM Modules 18.7. PAM Application Programming 18.8. PAM Module Programming 18.9. Sample PAM Application 18.10. Sample PAM Module 18.11. Sample PAM Conversation Function 18.12. Further Reading 19. Tuning NetBSD 19.1. Introduction 19.1.1. Overview 19.2. Tuning Considerations 19.2.1. General System Configuration 19.2.2. System Services 19.2.3. The NetBSD Kernel 19.3. Visual Monitoring Tools 19.3.1. The top Process Monitor 19.3.2. The sysstat utility 19.4. Monitoring Tools 19.4.1. fstat 19.4.2. iostat 19.4.3. ps 19.4.4. vmstat 19.5. Network Tools 19.5.1. ping 19.5.2. traceroute 19.5.3. netstat 19.5.4. tcpdump 19.6. Accounting 19.6.1. Accounting 19.6.2. Reading Accounting Information 19.6.3. How to Put Accounting to Use 19.7. Kernel Profiling 19.7.1. Getting Started 19.7.2. Interpretation of kgmon Output 19.7.3. Putting it to Use 19.7.4. Summary 19.8. System Tuning 19.8.1. Using sysctl 19.8.2. tmpfs & mfs 19.8.3. Journaling 19.8.4. LFS 19.9. Kernel Tuning 19.9.1. Preparing to Recompile a Kernel 19.9.2. Configuring the Kernel 19.9.3. Building the New Kernel 19.9.4. Shrinking the NetBSD kernel 20. NetBSD Veriexec subsystem 20.1. How it works 20.2. Signatures file 20.3. Generating fingerprints 20.4. Strict levels 20.5. Veriexec and layered file systems 20.6. Kernel configuration 21. Bluetooth on NetBSD 21.1. Introduction 21.2. Supported Hardware 21.3. System Configuration 21.4. Human Interface Devices 21.4.1. Mice 21.4.2. Keyboards 21.5. Personal Area Networking 21.5.1. Personal Area Networking User 21.6. Serial Connections 21.7. Audio 21.7.1. SCO Audio Headsets 21.7.2. SCO Audio Handsfree 21.8. Object Exchange 21.9. Troubleshooting 22. Miscellaneous operations 22.1. Installing the boot manager 22.2. Deleting the disklabel 22.3. Speaker 22.4. Forgot root password? 22.5. Password file is busy? 22.6. Adding a new hard disk 22.7. How to rebuild the devices in /dev IV. Networking and related issues 23. Introduction to TCP/IP Networking 23.1. Audience 23.2. Supported Networking Protocols 23.3. Supported Media 23.3.1. Ethernet 23.3.2. IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) 23.3.3. Serial Line 23.4. TCP/IP Address Format 23.5. Subnetting and Routing 23.6. Name Service Concepts 23.6.1. /etc/hosts 23.6.2. Domain Name Service (DNS) 23.6.3. Network Information Service (NIS/YP) 23.6.4. Other 23.7. IPv6 23.7.1. What good is IPv6? 23.7.2. Changes to IPv4 24. Setting up TCP/IP on NetBSD in practice 24.1. Overview of the network configuration files 24.2. Connecting to common LAN setups 24.2.1. Connecting using IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) 24.3. Manually creating a small LAN 24.4. Connecting to a home/office ISP with PPPoE 24.4.1. Configuring a VLAN 24.4.2. Setting up MSS clamping 24.4.3. Obtaining IPv6 addresses via Prefix Delegation 24.5. Setting up an Internet gateway with NPF 24.6. Setting up a network bridge device 24.6.1. Bridge example 24.7. Ensuring interfaces are initialized in the correct order 24.8. Some useful commands 25. The Internet Super Server inetd 25.1. Overview 25.2. What is inetd? 25.3. Configuring inetd - /etc/inetd.conf 25.4. Services - /etc/services 25.5. Protocols - /etc/protocols 25.6. Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) - /etc/rpc 25.7. Allowing and denying hosts - /etc/hosts.{allow,deny} 25.8. Adding a Service 25.9. When to use or not to use inetd 25.10. Other Resources 26. The Domain Name System 26.1. DNS Background and Concepts 26.1.1. Naming Services 26.1.2. The DNS namespace 26.1.3. Resource Records 26.1.4. Delegation 26.1.5. Delegation to multiple servers 26.1.6. Secondaries, Caching, and the SOA record 26.1.7. Name Resolution 26.1.8. Reverse Resolution 26.2. The DNS Files 26.2.1. /etc/named.conf 26.2.2. /etc/namedb/localhost 26.2.3. /etc/namedb/zone.127.0.0 26.2.4. /etc/namedb/diverge.org 26.2.5. /etc/namedb/1.168.192 26.2.6. /etc/namedb/root.cache 26.3. Using DNS 26.4. Setting up a caching only name server 26.4.1. Testing the server 27. Mail and news 27.1. postfix 27.1.1. Configuration of generic mapping 27.1.2. Testing the configuration 27.1.3. Using an alternative MTA 27.2. fetchmail 27.3. Reading and writing mail with mutt 27.4. Strategy for receiving mail 27.5. Strategy for sending mail 27.6. Advanced mail tools 27.7. News with tin 28. Introduction to the Common Address Redundancy Protocol (CARP) 28.1. CARP Operation 28.2. Configuring CARP 28.3. Enabling CARP Support 28.4. CARP Example 28.5. Advanced CARP configuration 28.6. Forcing Failover of the Master 29. Network services 29.1. The Network File System (NFS) 29.1.1. NFS setup example 29.1.2. Setting up NFS automounting for /net with amd(8) 29.2. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) V. Virtualization and emulation 30. Using virtualization: QEMU and NVMM 30.1. Enabling the NetBSD Virtual Machine Monitor 30.2. Using QEMU with NVMM 30.2.1. Starting QEMU with acceleration 30.2.2. Creating a virtual disk 30.2.3. Adding entropy to the guest 30.2.4. Using networking 30.2.5. Using audio 30.2.6. Using graphics (or no graphics) 30.3. Configuring bridged networking on a NetBSD host 30.4. Notes on using NetBSD as a guest 30.4.1. Unclean VM shutdown, data recovery, and fsck 30.4.2. NetBSD VMs lacking IPv6 30.4.3. Smooth audio playback and latency in VMs 30.4.4. Changing the console resolution in an x86 VM 31. Linux emulation 31.1. Emulation setup 31.1.1. Configuring the kernel 31.1.2. Installing the Linux libraries 31.1.3. Running Linux programs 31.2. Directory structure 31.3. Using Linux browser plugins 31.4. Further reading VI. Building the system 32. Obtaining the sources 32.1. Preparing directories 32.2. Terminology 32.3. Downloading tarballs 32.3.1. Downloading sources for a NetBSD release 32.3.2. Downloading sources for a NetBSD stable branch 32.3.3. Downloading sources for a NetBSD-current development branch 32.4. Fetching by CVS 32.4.1. Fetching a NetBSD release 32.4.2. Fetching a NetBSD stable branch 32.4.3. Fetching the NetBSD-current development branch 32.4.4. Saving some cvs(1) options 33. Crosscompiling NetBSD with build.sh 33.1. Building the toolchain 33.2. Configuring the kernel manually 33.3. Building the kernel manually 33.4. Building the kernel with build.sh 33.5. Building the userland 33.6. Building the X Window System 33.7. Changing build behaviour 33.7.1. Changing the Destination Directory 33.7.2. Static Builds 33.7.3. Using build.sh options 33.7.4. make(1) variables used during build 34. Compiling the kernel 34.1. Requirements and procedure 34.2. Installing the kernel sources 34.3. Creating the kernel configuration file 34.4. Building the kernel manually 34.4.1. Configuring the kernel manually 34.4.2. Generating dependencies and recompiling manually 34.5. Building the kernel using build.sh 34.6. Installing the new kernel 34.7. If something went wrong 35. Updating an existing system from sources 35.1. Manual build and update procedure 35.1.1. Building a new userland 35.1.2. Building a new kernel 35.1.3. Installing the kernel and userland 35.1.4. Updating the system configuration files 35.1.5. Summary 35.2. Using sysinst 35.3. Using sysbuild and sysupgrade 35.3.1. Tweak: Building as non-root 35.3.2. Tweak: Setting up nightly builds 35.4. More details about the updating of configuration and startup files 35.4.1. Using etcupdate with source files 35.4.2. Using etcupdate with binary distribution sets 35.4.3. Using etcmanage instead of etcupdate 36. Building NetBSD installation media 36.1. Creating standard installation images with build.sh 36.2. Creating custom live disk images A. Information A.1. Where to get this document A.2. Guide history B. Contributing to the NetBSD guide B.1. Sending contributions B.2. XML/DocBook template C. Getting started with XML/DocBook C.1. What is XML/DocBook C.2. Installing the necessary tools C.3. Using the tools C.4. Links D. Acknowledgements D.1. Original acknowledgements D.2. Current acknowledgements D.3. Licenses D.3.1. Federico Lupi's original license of this guide D.3.2. Networks Associates Technology's license on the PAM article D.3.3. Joel Knight's license on the CARP article E. Bibliography Bibliography List of Figures 2.1. Partitions 3.1. Selecting the language 3.2. Selecting a keyboard type 3.3. The sysinst main menu 3.4. Confirming to install NetBSD 3.5. Choosing a hard disk 3.6. Disk geometry 3.7. Choosing the partitioning scheme 3.8. fdisk 3.9. Partition options 3.10. Installing the boot selector 3.11. Edit partitions? 3.12. Setting partition sizes 3.13. The disklabel editor 3.14. Disklabel partition editing 3.15. Naming the NetBSD disk 3.16. Last chance to abort 3.17. Selecting bootblocks 3.18. Full or custom installation 3.19. Selecting distribution sets 3.20. Installation media 3.21. Mounting a file system 3.22. Mounting a partition 3.23. Accessing a MSDOS file system 3.24. Defining the FTP settings 3.25. Which network interface to configure 3.26. Using autoconfiguration 3.27. Confirm autoconfiguration 3.28. NFS install screen 3.29. NFS example 3.30. Extraction of sets completed 3.31. Configuration menu 3.32. Selecting the system's time zone 3.33. Choosing a shell 3.34. Set a root password? 3.35. Setting root password 3.36. Enabling installation of binary packages 3.37. Additional packages 3.38. Fetch and unpack pkgsrc 3.39. Installation completed 3.40. Reboot to finish installation 4.1. Starting the upgrade 4.2. Continuing the upgrade 4.3. Choosing the hard drive 4.4. File system check 4.5. Choosing bootblocks 4.6. Choosing the distribution filesets 4.7. Install medium 4.8. Upgrade complete 16.1. RAID-1 Disk Logical Layout 16.2. Perform generic install onto Disk0/wd0 16.3. Setup RAID Set 16.4. Reboot using Disk1/wd1 of RAID 16.5. Mirror Disk1/wd1 back to Disk0/wd0 16.6. Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk1/wd1 16.7. Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk0/wd0 17.1. Anatomy of Logical Volume Management 17.2. Example raid 1 configuration 23.1. IPv4-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits 23.2. Our demo-network 23.3. Attaching one subnet to another one 23.4. IPv6-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits, too 23.5. IPv6-addresses have a similar structure to class B addresses 23.6. Several interfaces attached to a link result in only one scope ID for the link 27.1. Structure of the mail system List of Tables 18.1. PAM chain execution summary 20.1. Veriexec fingerprints tools 20.2. Veriexec access type aliases List of Examples 11.1. /etc/powerd/scripts/lid_switch 11.2. /etc/powerd/scripts/acadapter 12.1. /etc/printcap 12.2. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter 12.3. /etc/printcap 12.4. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter-ps 24.1. /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf 24.2. /etc/hosts 24.3. /etc/ifconfig.pppoe0 24.4. /etc/ppp/ip-up 24.5. /etc/ppp/ip-down 24.6. /etc/ifconfig.vlan0 24.7. /etc/dhcpcd.conf 24.8. /etc/npf.conf 24.9. /etc/dhcpd.conf 24.10. /etc/ifconfig.tap0 26.1. strider's /etc/hosts file 26.2. localhost 32.1. .cvsrc Purpose of this guide This guide describes the installation and the configuration of the NetBSD operating system as well as the setup and administration of some of its subsystems. It primarily addresses people coming from other Unix-like operating systems, and aims to be a useful guide in the face of the many small problems one encounters when using a new tool. This guide is not a Unix tutorial: basic knowledge of some concepts and tools is assumed. You should know, for example, what a file and a directory are, and how to use an editor. There are plenty of books explaining basic Unix and operating system concepts, and you should consult one if you need more background information. It is better to choose a general book and avoid titles like "Learning Unix-XYZ, version 1.2.3.4 in 10 days", but this is a matter of personal taste. Much work is still required to finish this introduction to NetBSD: some chapters are not finished (some are not even started) and some subjects need more testing. Corrections and additions are most certainly welcome. This guide is currently maintained by the NetBSD www team (). Corrections and suggestions should be sent to that address. See also Appendix B, Contributing to the NetBSD guide. Part I. About NetBSD Table of Contents 1. What is NetBSD? 1.1. The story of NetBSD 1.2. NetBSD features 1.3. Supported platforms 1.4. NetBSD's target users 1.5. Applications for NetBSD 1.6. How to get NetBSD Chapter 1. What is NetBSD? Table of Contents 1.1. The story of NetBSD 1.2. NetBSD features 1.3. Supported platforms 1.4. NetBSD's target users 1.5. Applications for NetBSD 1.6. How to get NetBSD NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. It is available for many platforms, from 64-bit x86 servers and PC desktop systems to embedded ARM- and MIPS- based devices. Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent in both production and research environments, and it is user-supported with complete source. Many applications are easily available through pkgsrc, the NetBSD Packages Collection. 1.1. The story of NetBSD The first version of NetBSD (0.8) dates back to 1993 and springs from the 4.3BSD Lite operating system, a version of Unix developed at the University of California, Berkeley (BSD = Berkeley Software Distribution), and from the 386BSD system, the first BSD port to the Intel 386 CPU. In the following years, modifications from the 4.4BSD Lite release (the last release from the Berkeley group) were integrated into the system. The BSD branch of Unix has had a great importance and influence on the history of Unix-like operating systems, to which it has contributed many tools, ideas and improvements which are now standard: the vi editor, the C shell, job control, the Berkeley Fast File System, reliable signals, support for virtual memory and TCP/IP, just to name a few. This tradition of research and development survives today in the BSD systems and, in particular, in NetBSD. 1.2. NetBSD features NetBSD operates on a vast range of hardware platforms and is very portable. The full source to the NetBSD kernel and userland is available for all the supported platforms; please see the details on the official site of the NetBSD Project. The basic features of NetBSD are: * Code quality and correctness * Portability to a wide range of hardware * Secure defaults * Adherence to industry standards * Research and innovation These characteristics also bring indirect advantages. For example, if you work on just one platform you could think that you're not interested in portability. But portability is tied to code quality; without a well-written and well-organized code base it would be impossible to support a large number of platforms. And code quality is the base of any good and solid software system, though surprisingly few people seem to understand it. One of the key characteristics of NetBSD is that its developers are not satisfied with partial implementations. Some systems seem to have the philosophy of "If it works, it's right". In that light, NetBSD's philosophy could be described as "It doesn't work unless it's right". Think about how many overgrown programs are collapsing under their own weight and "features" and you'll understand why NetBSD tries to avoid this situation at all costs. 1.3. Supported platforms NetBSD supports many platforms, including the popular i386 and amd64, ARM, SPARC, Alpha, Amiga, Atari, and m68k- and PowerPC-based Apple Macintosh machines. Technical details for all of them can be found on the NetBSD site. 1.4. NetBSD's target users The NetBSD site states that: "The NetBSD Project provides a freely available and redistributable system that professionals, hobbyists, and researchers can use in whatever manner they wish". It is also an ideal system if you want to learn Unix, mainly because of its adherence to standards (one of the project goals) and because it works equally well on the latest PC hardware as well as on hardware which is considered obsolete by many other operating systems. To learn and use Unix you don't need to buy expensive hardware; you can use that old PC or Mac in your attic. It is important to note that although NetBSD runs on old hardware, modern hardware is well supported and care has been taken to ensure that supporting old machines does not inhibit performance on modern hardware. In addition, if you need a Unix system which runs consistently on a variety of platforms, NetBSD is probably your best choice. 1.5. Applications for NetBSD Aside from the standard Unix productivity tools, editors, formatters, C/C++ compilers and debuggers, and so on, that are included with the base system, there is a huge collection of packages (currently over 20,000) that can be installed as binary packages or built from pkgsrc, including popular cross-platform software such as Firefox, PostgreSQL, Python, and Xfce. 1.6. How to get NetBSD NetBSD is an Open Source operating system, and as such it is freely available for download from cdn.NetBSD.org and other mirrors. Part II. System installation and related issues Table of Contents 2. Installing NetBSD: Preliminary considerations and preparations 2.1. Preliminary considerations 2.1.1. Dual booting 2.1.2. NetBSD on emulation and virtualization 2.2. Install preparations 2.2.1. The INSTALL document 2.2.2. Partitions 2.2.3. Hard disk space requirements 2.2.4. Network settings 2.2.5. Backup your data and operating systems! 2.2.6. Preparing the installation media 2.3. Checklist 3. Example installation 3.1. Introduction 3.2. The installation process 3.3. Keyboard layout 3.4. Starting the installation 3.5. MBR partitions 3.6. Disklabel partitions 3.7. Setting the disk name 3.8. Last chance! 3.9. The disk preparation process 3.10. Installation type 3.11. Choosing the installation medium 3.11.1. Installing from CD-ROM / DVD / install image media 3.11.2. Installing from an unmounted file system 3.11.3. Installing via FTP and Network configuration 3.11.4. Installing via NFS 3.12. Extracting sets 3.13. System configuration 3.14. Finishing the installation 4. Upgrading NetBSD 4.1. Using sysinst 4.1.1. Overview 4.1.2. The INSTALL document 4.1.3. Performing the upgrade 4.2. Using sysupgrade Chapter 2. Installing NetBSD: Preliminary considerations and preparations Table of Contents 2.1. Preliminary considerations 2.1.1. Dual booting 2.1.2. NetBSD on emulation and virtualization 2.2. Install preparations 2.2.1. The INSTALL document 2.2.2. Partitions 2.2.3. Hard disk space requirements 2.2.4. Network settings 2.2.5. Backup your data and operating systems! 2.2.6. Preparing the installation media 2.3. Checklist 2.1. Preliminary considerations 2.1.1. Dual booting It is possible to install NetBSD together with other operating systems on one hard disk. If there is already an operating system on the hard disk, think about how you can free some space for NetBSD; if NetBSD will share the disk with other operating systems you will probably need to create a new partition (which you will do with sysinst). Oftentimes this will not be possible unless you resize an existing partition. Unfortunately, it is not possible to resize an existing partition with sysinst, but there are some commercial products (like Partition Magic) and some free tools (GNU Parted, FIPS, pfdisk) available for this. You can also install NetBSD on a separate hard disk. Advice Unless you are comfortable with setting up a partitioning scheme for two or more operating systems, and unless you understand the risk of data loss if you should make a mistake, it is recommended that you give NetBSD its own hard disk. This removes the risk of damage to the existing operating system. 2.1.2. NetBSD on emulation and virtualization It is possible to install and run NetBSD on top of other operating systems without having to worry about partitioning. Emulators or virtualization environments provide a quick and secure way to try out NetBSD. The host operating system remains unchanged, and the risk of damaging important data is minimized. Information about NetBSD as a Xen host and guest system is available on the NetBSD/xen web page. The NetBSD on emulated hardware web page provides detailed information about various emulators and the supported NetBSD platforms. It should also be noted that NetBSD runs as a VMware guest. 2.2. Install preparations 2.2.1. The INSTALL document The first thing to do before installing NetBSD is to read the release information and installation notes in one of the INSTALL files: this is the official description of the installation procedure, with platform-specific information and important details. It is available in HTML, PostScript, plain text, and an enhanced text format to be used with more. These files can be found in the root directory of the NetBSD release (on the install CD or on the FTP server). For example, the amd64 install instructions are available at ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.3/amd64/INSTALL.html 2.2.2. Partitions The terminology used by NetBSD for partitioning is different from the typical DOS/Windows terminology; in fact, there are two partitioning schemes involved when running NetBSD on a typical PC. NetBSD installs in one of the four primary BIOS partitions (the partitions defined in the hard disk partition table). Within a BIOS partition (also called slice) NetBSD defines its BSD partitions using a disklabel. These partitions can be seen only by NetBSD and are identified by lowercase letters (starting with "a"). For example, wd0a refers to the "a" partition of the first IDE disk (wd0) and sd0a refers to the "a" partition of the first SCSI disk. In Figure 2.1, "Partitions" there are two primary BIOS partitions, one used by DOS and the other by NetBSD. NetBSD describes the disk layout through the disklabel. Figure 2.1. Partitions Partitions Note The meaning of partitions "c" and "d" is typical of the amd64 port. On most other ports, "c" represents the whole disk. Note If NetBSD shares the hard disk with another operating system (like in the previous example) you will want to install a boot manager, i.e., a program which lets you choose which OS to start at boot time. sysinst can do this for you and will ask if you want to install one. Unless you have specific reasons not to, you should let sysinst perform this step. 2.2.3. Hard disk space requirements The exact amount of space required for a given NetBSD installation varies depending on the platform being used and which distribution sets are selected. Generally speaking, if you have a few GB of free space on your hard drive, you will have enough space for a full installation of the base system. 2.2.4. Network settings If you plan to fetch distribution sets over the network (not necessary if you downloaded a full-size install ISO) and do not use DHCP, write down your basic network settings. You will need: * Your IP address (example: 192.168.1.7) * the netmask (example: 255.255.255.0) * the IP address of your default gateway (example: 192.168.1.1) * the IP address of the DNS server you use (example: 145.253.2.75) 2.2.5. Backup your data and operating systems! Before you begin the installation, make sure that you have a reliable backup of any operating systems and data on the used hard disk. Mistakes in partitioning your hard disk can lead to data loss. Existing operating systems may become unbootable. "Reliable backup" means that the backup and restore procedure is tested and works flawlessly! 2.2.6. Preparing the installation media The NetBSD installation system consists of two parts. The first part is the installation kernel. This kernel contains the NetBSD install program sysinst and it is booted from the install media (e.g, CD/DVD, USB drive, memory card, etc.). The sysinst program will prepare the disk: it separates the disk space into partitions, makes the disk bootable and creates the necessary file systems. The second part of the install system is made up of the binary distribution sets: the files of the NetBSD operating system. The installer needs to have access to the distribution sets. sysinst will usually fetch these files from the install media you booted from, but it can also fetch them via FTP, NFS, or a local filesystem. The NetBSD Project provides complete install media for every supported hardware architecture. This is usually in the form of bootable CD images (.iso files). 2.2.6.1. Booting the install system from USB To use a bootable USB install image (on amd64, i386), download the img.gz file for your hardware architecture, decompress and copy the image to a USB. For example on a Unix-like system you may use: # gunzip NetBSD-9.3-amd64-install.img.gz # dd if=NetBSD-9.3-amd64-install.img of=/dev/your-usb bs=2m Examples of your-usb are /dev/rsd0d (NetBSD), /dev/sda (Linux). Caution Selecting the wrong device in dd may destroy your current system. Double-check it isn't mounted and is your USB stick. It should appear at the bottom of dmesg on connect, for example, if you see: sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: [...], disk removable on NetBSD, you will want to select /dev/rsd0d. 2.2.6.2. Booting the install system from CD To use a bootable NetBSD install CD, download the iso file for your hardware architecture and burn it to a CD or DVD. You will need to handle this step alone, as burning programs vary widely. Ensure that your computer is set up to boot from CD-ROM before hard drives, insert the disc, and reboot the computer. 2.3. Checklist This is the checklist about the things that should be clear and on-hand now: * Available disk space * Bootable medium with the install system * CD/DVD or server with the distribution sets * Your network information (only if you will be fetching distribution sets via the network and do not use DHCP) * A working backup * A copy of the INSTALL document Chapter 3. Example installation Table of Contents 3.1. Introduction 3.2. The installation process 3.3. Keyboard layout 3.4. Starting the installation 3.5. MBR partitions 3.6. Disklabel partitions 3.7. Setting the disk name 3.8. Last chance! 3.9. The disk preparation process 3.10. Installation type 3.11. Choosing the installation medium 3.11.1. Installing from CD-ROM / DVD / install image media 3.11.2. Installing from an unmounted file system 3.11.3. Installing via FTP and Network configuration 3.11.4. Installing via NFS 3.12. Extracting sets 3.13. System configuration 3.14. Finishing the installation 3.1. Introduction This chapter will guide you through the installation process. The concepts presented here apply to all installation methods. The only difference is in the way the distribution sets are fetched by the installer. Some details of the installation differ depending on the NetBSD release. The examples from this chapter were created with NetBSD 8.0. Note The following install screens are just examples. Do not simply copy them, as your hardware and configuration details may be different! 3.2. The installation process The installation process is divided logically into two parts. In the first part, you create a partition for NetBSD and write the disklabel for that partition. In the second part, you decide which distribution sets (subsets of the operating system) you want to install and then extract the files into the newly created partition(s). 3.3. Keyboard layout The NetBSD install program sysinst allows you to change the keyboard layout during the installation. If for some reason this does not work for you, you can use the map in the following table. +-----------+ |US|IT|DE|FR| |--+--+--+--| |- |' |ß |) | |--+--+--+--| |/ |- |- |! | |--+--+--+--| |= |ì |' |- | |--+--+--+--| |: |ç |Ö |M | |--+--+--+--| |; |ò |ö |m | |--+--+--+--| |# |£ |§ |3 | |--+--+--+--| |" |° |Ä |% | |--+--+--+--| |* |( |( |8 | |--+--+--+--| |( |) |) |9 | |--+--+--+--| |) |= |= |0 | |--+--+--+--| |' |à |ä |ù | |--+--+--+--| |` |\ |^ |@ | |--+--+--+--| |\ |ù |# |` | +-----------+ 3.4. Starting the installation To start the installation of NetBSD, insert your chosen boot medium (CD/DVD, USB drive, floppy, etc.) and reboot the computer. The kernel on the installation medium will be booted and it will start displaying a lot of messages on the screen about hardware being detected. Figure 3.1. Selecting the language Selecting the language When the kernel has booted, you will find yourself in the NetBSD installation program, sysinst, shown in Figure 3.1, "Selecting the language". From here on, you should follow the instructions displayed on the screen, using the INSTALL document as a companion reference. You will find the INSTALL document in various formats in the root directory of the NetBSD release. The sysinst screens all have more or less the same layout: the upper part of the screen shows a short description of the current operation or a short help message, and the rest of the screen is made up of interactive menus and prompts. To make a choice, use the cursor keys, the "Ctrl+N" (next) and "Ctrl+P" (previous) keys, or press one of the letters displayed left of each choice. Confirm your choice by pressing the Return (also known as "Enter") key. Start by selecting the language you prefer to use for the installation process. The next screen Figure 3.2, "Selecting a keyboard type" will allow you to select a suitable keyboard type. Figure 3.2. Selecting a keyboard type Selecting a keyboard type This will bring you to the main menu of the installation program (Figure 3.3, "The sysinst main menu"). Figure 3.3. The sysinst main menu The sysinst main menu Choosing the "Install NetBSD to hard disk" option brings you to the next screen (Figure 3.4, "Confirming to install NetBSD"), where you need to confirm that you want to continue the installation. Figure 3.4. Confirming to install NetBSD Confirming to install NetBSD After choosing "Yes" to continue, sysinst displays a list of one or more disks and asks which one you want to install NetBSD on. In the example of Figure 3.5, "Choosing a hard disk", two disks are listed, and NetBSD will be installed on " wd0", the first SATA or IDE disk found. If you use SCSI or external USB disks, the first one will be named "sd0", the second one "sd1" and so on. Figure 3.5. Choosing a hard disk Choosing a hard disk Then the installer will ask you to confirm the detected disk geometry from the information provided by the BIOS, as shown in Figure 3.6, "Disk geometry". It almost always gives the right values. Choose "This is the correct geometry", unless you know that the information provided by your BIOS is reportedly incorrect. Figure 3.6. Disk geometry Disk geometry 3.5. MBR partitions The first important step of the installation has come: the partitioning of the hard disk. First, you need to specify whether NetBSD will use a partition (suggested choice) or the whole disk. In the former case it is still possible to create a partition that uses the whole hard disk (Figure 3.7, "Choosing the partitioning scheme"), so we recommend that you select this option as it keeps the BIOS partition table in a format which is compatible with other operating systems. Figure 3.7. Choosing the partitioning scheme Choosing the partitioning scheme The next screen shows the current state of the MBR partition table on the hard disk before the installation of NetBSD. There are four primary partitions, and as you can see, this example disk is currently empty. If you do have other partitions you can leave them around and install NetBSD on a partition that is currently unused, or you can overwrite a partition to use it for NetBSD. Figure 3.8. fdisk fdisk Deleting a partition is simple: after selecting the partition, a menu with options for that partition will appear (Figure 3.9, "Partition options"). Change the partition kind to "Delete partition" to remove the partition. Of course, if you want to use the partition for NetBSD you can set the partition kind to "NetBSD". You can create a partition for NetBSD by selecting the partition you want to install NetBSD to. The partition names "a" to "d" correspond to the four primary partitions on other operating systems. After selecting a partition, a menu with options for that partition will appear, as shown in Figure 3.9, "Partition options". Figure 3.9. Partition options Partition options To create a new partition, the following information must be supplied: * the type (kind) of the new partition * the first (start) sector of the new partition * the size of the new partition Choose the partition type "NetBSD" for the new partition (using the "type" option). The installation program will try to guess the "start" position based on the end of the preceding partition. Change this value if necessary. The same thing applies to the "size" option; the installation program will try to fill in the space that is available until the next partition or the end of the disk (depending on which comes first). You can change this value if it is incorrect, or if you do not want NetBSD to use all the suggested amount of space. After you have chosen the partition type, start position, and size, it is a good idea to set the name that should be used in the boot menu. You can do this by selecting the "bootmenu" option and providing a label, e.g., "NetBSD". Repeat this step for other bootable partitions, so you can boot both NetBSD and a Windows system (or other operating systems) using the NetBSD bootselector. You can also choose one of the labelled partitions as default for the boot menu. If you are satisfied with the partition options, confirm your choice by selecting "Partition OK". Choose "Partition table OK" to leave the MBR partition table editor. If you have made an error in partitioning (for example you have created overlapping partitions) sysinst will display a message and suggest to go back to the MBR partition editor (but you are also allowed to continue). If the data is correct but the NetBSD partition lies outside the range of sectors which is bootable by the BIOS, sysinst will warn you and ask if you want to proceed anyway. Doing so may lead to problems on older PCs. Note This is not a limitation of NetBSD. Some old BIOSes cannot boot a partition which lies outside the first 1024 cylinders. To fully understand the problem, you should study the different types of BIOSes and the many addressing schemes that they use (physical CHS, logical CHS, LBA, ...). These topics are not described in this guide. On modern computers (those with support for int13 extensions), it is possible to install NetBSD in partitions that live outside the first 8 GB of the hard disk, provided that the NetBSD boot selector is installed. Next, sysinst will offer to install a boot selector on the hard disk. This screen is shown in Figure 3.10, "Installing the boot selector". Figure 3.10. Installing the boot selector Installing the boot selector At this point, the BIOS partitions (called slices on BSD systems) have been created. They are also called PC BIOS partitions, MBR partitions or fdisk partitions. Note Do not confuse the slices or BIOS partitions with the BSD partitions, which are different things. 3.6. Disklabel partitions Some platforms, like PC systems (amd64 and i386), use DOS-style MBR partitions to separate file systems. The MBR partition you created earlier in the installation process is necessary to make sure that other operating systems do not overwrite the diskspace that you allocated to NetBSD. NetBSD uses its own partition scheme, called a disklabel, which is stored at the start of the MBR partition: for more information, refer to Section 2.2.2, "Partitions". In the next few steps you will create a disklabel(5) and set the sizes of the NetBSD partitions, or use existing partition sizes, as shown in Figure 3.11, "Edit partitions?". Figure 3.11. Edit partitions? Edit partitions? When you choose to set the sizes of the NetBSD partitions you can define the partitions you would like to create. The installation program will generate a disklabel based on these settings. This installation screen is shown in Figure 3.12, "Setting partition sizes". Figure 3.12. Setting partition sizes Setting partition sizes As specified in Figure 3.3, "The sysinst main menu", the items of the installation menus can be selected pressing the letter displayed left of them. Be careful that, in these menus, they do not always correspond to the BSD disklabel partition letters. For example, third line (letter "c") of Figure 3.12, "Setting partition sizes" does not refer to the whole NetBSD partition, as well as the fourth line (letter "d") does not correspond to BSD disklabel partition "d". The default partition scheme of just using a big / (root) file system (plus swap) works fine with NetBSD, and there is little need to change this. Figure 3.12, "Setting partition sizes" shows how to change the size of the swap partition to 4096 MB. Note also that partition / is marked with a "+", so it will occupy all the remaining free space (not located for any other partition). Changing /tmp to reside on a RAM disk (mount_tmpfs(8) or mfs(8)) for extra speed may be a good idea. Other partition schemes may use separate partitions for /var, /usr and/or /home, but you should use your own experience to decide if you need this. When you completed the definition of all the desired partitions, choose "Accept partition sizes". The next step is to create the disklabel and edit its partitions, if necessary, using the disklabel editor (Figure 3.13, "The disklabel editor"). If you predefined the partition sizes in the previous step, the resulting disklabel will probably fit your wishes. In that case you can complete the process immediately by selecting "Partition sizes ok". Figure 3.13. The disklabel editor The disklabel editor Letters in Figure 3.13, "The disklabel editor" are used for line selection and to represent the corresponding BSD disklabel partitions, with the meaning specified in Section 2.2.2, "Partitions". In the amd64 port, there are two reserved partitions: "c", representing the NetBSD partition, and "d", representing the whole disk. You can edit all the other partitions by using the cursor keys and pressing the Return key, or using their corresponding letters. You can add a partition by selecting an unused slot and setting parameters for that partition. The partition editing screen is shown in Figure 3.14, "Disklabel partition editing". When you are satisfied with all the values, choose "Partition sizes ok". Figure 3.14. Disklabel partition editing Disklabel partition editing 3.7. Setting the disk name After defining the partitions in the new disklabel, the last item is to enter a name for the NetBSD disk as shown in Figure 3.15, "Naming the NetBSD disk". This can be used later to distinguish between disklabels of otherwise identical disks. Figure 3.15. Naming the NetBSD disk Naming the NetBSD disk 3.8. Last chance! The installer now has all the data it needs to prepare the disk. Nothing has been written to the disk at this point but, and now is your last chance to abort the installation process before actually writing data to the disk. Choose "no" to abort the installation process and return to the main menu, or continue by selecting "yes". Figure 3.16. Last chance to abort Last chance to abort 3.9. The disk preparation process After confirming that sysinst should prepare the disk, it will run disklabel(8) to create the NetBSD partition layout and newfs(8) to create the file systems on the disk. After preparing the NetBSD partitions and their filesystems, the next question (shown in Figure 3.17, "Selecting bootblocks") is which bootblocks to install. Usually you will choose the default of BIOS console, i.e., show boot messages on your computer's display. If you run a farm of machines without monitor, it may be more convenient to use a serial console running on one of the serial ports. The menu also allows changing the serial port's baud rate from the default of 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity and one stopbit. Figure 3.17. Selecting bootblocks Selecting bootblocks 3.10. Installation type The installer will then ask whether you want to do a full, minimal or custom installation. NetBSD is broken into a collection of distributions sets. "Full installation" is the default and will install all sets; "Minimal installation" will only install a small core set, the minimum of what is needed for a working system. If you select "Custom installation" you can select which sets you would like to have installed. This step is shown in Figure 3.18, "Full or custom installation". Figure 3.18. Full or custom installation Full or custom installation If you choose to do a custom installation, sysinst will allow you to choose which distribution sets to install, as shown in Figure 3.19, "Selecting distribution sets". At a minimum, you must select a kernel and the "Base" and " Configuration files (/etc)" sets. Figure 3.19. Selecting distribution sets Selecting distribution sets 3.11. Choosing the installation medium At this point, you have finished the first and most difficult part of the installation! The second half of the installation process consists in populating the file systems by extracting the distribution sets that you selected earlier ("Base", "Compiler tools", "Games", etc.). Now sysinst needs to find the NetBSD sets and you must tell it where to find them: it can be the same medium where sysinst resides, or a different one, according to your preferences. The menu offers several choices, as shown in Figure 3.20, "Installation media". The options are explained in detail in the INSTALL documents. Figure 3.20. Installation media Installation media 3.11.1. Installing from CD-ROM / DVD / install image media Choose this option if you want to install NetBSD from either an optic medium (" CD-ROM / DVD") or another medium, such as an USB drive. If the running sysinst itself has been loaded from there, the corresponding device will be automatically selected and the extraction of the distribution sets will begin. The CD-ROM/DVD or other device name If sysinst is not able to detect the CD-ROM/DVD or the USB flash device, you can gather more information about the hardware configuration as follows: 1. Press "Ctrl+Z" to pause sysinst and go to the shell prompt. 2. Type the command: # dmesg This will show the kernel startup messages, including information about not detected or not configured devices. When the first CD-ROM or DVD drive in the system is properly working, it is usually named cd0, regardless of whether it is IDE or SCSI (or even USB or FireWire). The first USB flash drive is named sd0 when it is correctly configured. 3. If the display scrolls too quickly, you can also use more: # dmesg | more 4. As instructed, you can return to the NetBSD installation by typing either " exit" or "^D" ("Ctrl+D"). 3.11.2. Installing from an unmounted file system Figure 3.21, "Mounting a file system" shows the menu to install NetBSD from an unmounted file system. It is necessary to specify the device ("Device"), its file system type ("File system") and a root directory inside it ("Base directory"). The binary installation sets and the source sets are .tgz files. The default mountpoint is "mnt" in amd64. The path is formed as follows: /// or /set.tgz Choose a combination of "Base directory" and "Binary set directory" (or "Source set directory") that generates a valid path in your unmounted filesystem. If more than one consecutive / appear, only the first / will actually be considered. You need to specify a "Source set directory" only if you previously chose to install some sources. Source sets are usually not included in the installation images. In the following example the install sets are stored on a MSDOS file system, on partition "e" on the device "sd0". Figure 3.21. Mounting a file system Mounting a file system Specify the device name and the partition. Figure 3.22, "Mounting a partition " shows how to specify device "sd0" with partition "e". Figure 3.22. Mounting a partition Mounting a partition In Figure 3.23, "Accessing a MSDOS file system" the file system type specified is "msdos". This value is used to form the command mount_ to mount the volume. Any string (representing a "File system" type) which forms a valid command is accepted: for example, the NetBSD file system "ffs" or "ext2fs", a Linux file system. In this example, the "Base directory" item is left blank and the binary sets are stored under /sets, so that the path becomes: /mnt///sets Ignoring the multiple /, this is equivalent to /mnt/sets and it is a valid one. Choosing "Continue" will start the extraction of the sets. Figure 3.23. Accessing a MSDOS file system Accessing a MSDOS file system 3.11.3. Installing via FTP and Network configuration If you choose to install from a local network or the Internet via FTP, sysinst must be instructed to properly get the distribution sets, as shown in Figure 3.24, "Defining the FTP settings". Figure 3.24. Defining the FTP settings Defining the FTP settings The defaults work most of the time. You also need to configure your network connection, before proceeding: go to the corresponding menu item, pressing letter "j". NetBSD currently supports installation via ethernet, USB ethernet or wireless, and wireless LAN. Installation via DSL (PPP over Ethernet) is not supported during installation. In the first step, shown in Figure 3.25, "Which network interface to configure" , the network card to be configured must be selected. sysinst will determine a list of available network interfaces, present them and ask which one to use. Figure 3.25. Which network interface to configure Which network interface to configure Note The exact names of your network interfaces depend on the hardware you use. Example interfaces are "wm" for Intel Gigabit interfaces, "ne" for NE2000 and compatible ethernet cards, and "ath" for Atheros based wireless cards. This list is by no means complete, and NetBSD supports many more network devices. If your network device is not listed in Figure 3.25, "Which network interface to configure", maybe it has not been properly detected. To get a list of network interfaces available on your system, interrupt the installation process by pressing "Ctrl+Z", then enter # ifconfig -a wm0: flags=0x8802 mtu 1500 capabilities=2bf80 capabilities=2bf80 capabilities=2bf80 enabled=0 ec_capabilities=7 ec_enabled=0 address: 08:00:27:7e:85:d7 media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT full-duplex) status: active lo0: flags=0x8048 mtu 33624 If the desired interface has not been shown, get more information about all the devices found during system boot. Type: # dmesg | more As instructed, you can return to the NetBSD installation by typing either "exit " or "^D" ("Ctrl+D"). Next, you have a chance to set your network medium. Press "Enter" to choose the default. Note It is unlikely that you will need anything other than the default here. If you experience problems like very slow transfers or timeouts, you may, for example, force different duplex settings for ethernet cards. To get a list of supported media and media options for a given network device ("wm0", for example), escape from sysinst by pressing "Ctrl+Z", then enter: # ifconfig -m wm0 wm0: flags=0x8802 mtu 1500 capabilities=2bf80 capabilities=2bf80 capabilities=2bf80 enabled=0 ec_capabilities=7 ec_enabled=0 address: 08:00:27:7e:85:d7 media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT full-duplex) status: active supported Ethernet media: media none media 10baseT media 10baseT mediaopt full-duplex media 100baseTX media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex media autoselect The several values printed after "media" may be of interest here, including keywords like "autoselect" but also including any "mediaopt" settings. Return to the installation by typing "exit" or "^D" ("Ctrl+D"). The next question, shown in Figure 3.26, "Using autoconfiguration", is whether you want to perform autoconfiguration. This procedure uses DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). sysinst will fetch a number of defaults from it, giving most likely the correct settings. This procedure is recommended, unless you want to set a static IP address, and/or specify some custom parameters. Figure 3.26. Using autoconfiguration Using autoconfiguration You will then be asked for your "DNS domain"; if the machine is not in a registered public domain, it can be left blank. At the end of this procedure, a list of all the settings is shown, as in Figure 3.27, "Confirm autoconfiguration". If they are correct, choose "Yes". Otherwise, choosing "No", the network configuration will restart from the beginning, giving the opportunity to perform again all the steps (and also to perform a manual configuration). Figure 3.27. Confirm autoconfiguration Confirm autoconfiguration If you chose "No" in Figure 3.26, "Using autoconfiguration", you will be asked several questions to manually configure the network. All the parameters are presented in the form "Parameter_name [default_value]:". Press "Enter" to use the default value. If no default value is provided, the parameter will be left blank. Your host name: The name by which other machines can usually address your computer. Not used during installation. Your DNS Domain: This is the name of the domain you are in. You may leave it blank if you are not in a public domain. Your IPv4 address: Enter your numerical Internet Protocol address in "dotted quad" notation here, for example, 192.168.1.3. It will be used as a static IP for your network card. IPv4 Netmask: The netmask for your network, either given as a hex value ("0xffffff00") or in dotted-quad notation ("255.255.255.0"). IPv4 gateway: Your router's (or default gateway's) IP address. Do not use a hostname here! Your name server: Your (first) DNS server's IP address. Again, don't use a hostname. After answering all of your network configuration info, their list is shown as in Figure 3.27, "Confirm autoconfiguration". You will have a chance to go back and make changes. If you are satisfied with your settings, choose "Yes". sysinst will now run a few commands (not displayed in detail here) to configure the network: flushing the routing table, setting the default route, and testing if the network connection is operational. Now that you have a functional network connection, the menu in Figure 3.24, "Defining the FTP settings" will be shown again. Choose "Get Distribution" to continue: sysinst will download the selected set files to a temporary directory, and then extract them. 3.11.4. Installing via NFS If you want to install NetBSD from a server in your local network, NFS is an alternative to FTP. Note Using this installation method requires the ability to set up an NFS server, a topic which is not discussed here. As shown in Figure 3.28, "NFS install screen", you must specify: the IP address of the NFS server as "Host"; the directory exported by the NFS server as "Base directory"; the directory containing the install sets as "Set directory". Figure 3.28. NFS install screen NFS install screen Figure 3.29, "NFS example" shows an example: Host "192.168.1.50" is the NFS server which exports the directory /home/username/Downloads. The NetBSD install sets are stored in /home/username/Downloads/sets on the NFS server. Choose " Continue" to start the installation of the distribution sets. Figure 3.29. NFS example NFS example 3.12. Extracting sets After the method to obtain the distribution sets has been chosen, and (if applicable) after those sets have been transferred, they will be extracted into the new NetBSD file system. A message (see Figure 3.30, "Extraction of sets completed") will let you know that the set extraction is now completed and that you have the opportunity to perform some essential configuration before finishing the NetBSD installation. Figure 3.30. Extraction of sets completed Extraction of sets completed 3.13. System configuration A menu with all the available configuration options is shown like in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu". After the configuration of each item, you will get back to this menu, having the chance to select another one. Figure 3.31. Configuration menu Configuration menu If you have not yet configured Network, you can do it now, following the same procedure already presented in Section 3.11.3, "Installing via FTP and Network configuration". The timezone can also be configured. It is Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) by default. Use the two-level menu of Continents/Countries and cities shown in Figure 3.32, "Selecting the system's time zone" to select your local timezone with the Return key. After a valid selection, the cursor will automatically be moved to an "Exit" item. Then, simply press Return to exit the timezone selection. Figure 3.32. Selecting the system's time zone Selecting the system's time zone The next item in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu" allows you to choose which command-line interpreter - also known as "shell" - will be used for the root account. The default is the Bourne-compatible Almquist shell, sh(1). Other choices are the Korn shell (ksh(1)) and the C shell (csh(1)). If, upon reading this, you don't have some idea on which shell you prefer, simply use the default, as this is a highly subjective decision. Should you later change your mind, root's shell can always be changed. Figure 3.33. Choosing a shell Choosing a shell The root account still does not have a password. It is recommended to set it at this point for security reasons, choosing the related item in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu". Figure 3.34. Set a root password? Set a root password? When you agree to set a root password, sysinst will run the passwd(1) utility for you. Please note that the password is not echoed. Figure 3.35. Setting root password Setting root password To ease the future installation of binary packages, it is possible to make a preliminary configuration of pkgin: choose "Enable installation of binary packages" in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu". pkgin will be fetched and installed from an FTP server, so be sure that the network configuration has already been done. Specify the "Host" name, its "Base directory" (where the packages for all the NetBSD ports are stored), and the "Package directory", related to your port and your NetBSD version. Usually, the defaults are correct. Figure 3.36. Enabling installation of binary packages Enabling installation of binary packages Choosing "ftp" as "User", no password will be required. As shown in Figure 3.36, "Enabling installation of binary packages", you can also choose to install one or more additional packages, typing their names using a space as separator, pressing "Enter" at the end. To proceed to the installation, type "x " and press "Enter". A "pkgin update" will be run after the installation of pkgin, to let the repository be immediately up to date. Figure 3.37. Additional packages Additional packages After the procedure is completed, sysinst will show the command to install further packages. Hit "Enter" to go back to the configuration menu. If you need or want to build packages from their source code via pkgsrc, choose "Fetch and unpack pkgsrc for building from source" in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu". As before, specify the "Host" name; "pkgsrc directory" is the sources base directory. Defaults are usually the best values. A single archive file will be downloaded, for example pkgsrc.tgz: if you want to automatically remove it after the pkgsrc installation, move the cursor on " Delete after install" and press "Enter". To proceed with the download, type "x" and then press "Enter". Figure 3.38. Fetch and unpack pkgsrc Fetch and unpack pkgsrc In the initial configuration menu (Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu"), it is also possible to enable some useful services such as the daemon listening for ssh. For information about ntpd and ntpdate, refer to Section 29.2, "The Network Time Protocol (NTP)". xdm handles the authentication and the session of users through an X display. Usage of the Cryptographic Device Driver (cgd) is shown in Chapter 14, The cryptographic device driver (CGD). Logical Volume Manager (lvm) is documented in Chapter 17, NetBSD Logical Volume Manager (LVM) configuration, raidframe in Chapter 16, NetBSD RAIDframe. mdnsd provides a Multicast DNS service, and also DNS Service Discovery on NetBSD: check mdnsd(8) for more details. Finally, the menu in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu" lets you add a regular user to the system. For all the base information about users and root accounts, as well as the wheel group, refer to Section 5.6, "Adding users". When you completed the configuration of all the desired items, choose "Finished configuring" in Figure 3.31, "Configuration menu". 3.14. Finishing the installation At this point the installation is finished. Figure 3.39. Installation completed Installation completed After passing the dialog that confirms the installation, sysinst will return to the main menu. Remove any installation media (CD, floppy, etc.) and choose " Reboot the computer" to boot your new NetBSD installation. Figure 3.40. Reboot to finish installation Reboot to finish installation Chapter 4. Upgrading NetBSD Table of Contents 4.1. Using sysinst 4.1.1. Overview 4.1.2. The INSTALL document 4.1.3. Performing the upgrade 4.2. Using sysupgrade This chapter describes the binary upgrade of a NetBSD system. There are a variety of alternatives to perform this procedure, and the following sections will guide you through them: 4.1. Using sysinst 4.1.1. Overview To do the upgrade, you must have some form of bootable media (CD-ROM, USB drive, floppy, etc.) available and at least the base and kern distribution sets. Since files already installed on the system are overwritten in place, you only need additional free space for files which weren't previously installed or to account for growth of the sets between releases. Usually this is not more than a few megabytes. Note Since upgrading involves replacing the kernel, boot blocks, and most of the system binaries, it has the potential to cause data loss. Before beginning, you are strongly advised to back up any important data on the NetBSD partition or on any other partitions on your disk. The upgrade procedure is similar to an installation, but without the hard disk partitioning. sysinst will attempt to merge the settings stored in your /etc directory with the new version of NetBSD. Also, file systems are checked before unpacking the sets. Fetching the binary sets is done in the same manner as in the installation procedure. 4.1.2. The INSTALL document Before doing an upgrade it is essential to read the release information and upgrading notes in one of the INSTALL files: this is the official description of the upgrade procedure, with platform specific information and important details. It can be found in the root directory of the NetBSD release (on the install CD or on the FTP server). It is advisable to print the INSTALL document out. It is available in four formats: .txt, .ps, .more, and .html. 4.1.3. Performing the upgrade The following section provides an overview of the binary upgrade process. Most of the following sysinst dialogs are similar to those of the installation process. More verbose descriptions and explanations of the dialogs are available in Chapter 3, Example installation. After selecting the installation language and the keyboard type, the main menu appears. Choosing option "b: Upgrade NetBSD on a hard disk" will start the the upgrade process. Figure 4.1. Starting the upgrade Starting the upgrade The dialog in Figure 4.2, "Continuing the upgrade" will request permission to continue with the upgrade. At this point nothing has been changed yet and the upgrade can still be cancelled. This is a good time to ask yourself whether you have made a backup, and if you know for certain that you will be able to restore from it. Figure 4.2. Continuing the upgrade Continuing the upgrade After choosing to continue with "Yes", the next dialog will ask you to specify the hard disk with the NetBSD system that shall be upgraded. Figure 4.3. Choosing the hard drive Choosing the hard drive The system used for the example has only one hard disk available: "wd0". At this point, sysinst will perform a check of the file system to ensure its integrity. Figure 4.4. File system check File system check The next step is to choose which type of bootblocks to install. Figure 4.5. Choosing bootblocks Choosing bootblocks The following dialog provides a menu to choose the installation type. The choices are "Full installation", "Installation without X11", "Minimal installation", or "Custom installation". Figure 4.6. Choosing the distribution filesets Choosing the distribution filesets The following dialog asks for the install method of choice and provides a list of possible options. The install medium contains the new NetBSD distribution sets. You will be prompted for different information depending on which option you choose. For example, a CD-ROM or DVD install requires you to specify which device to use and which directory the sets are in, while an FTP install requires you to configure your network and specify the hostname of an FTP server. More details can be found in Section 3.11, "Choosing the installation medium". Figure 4.7. Install medium Install medium sysinst will now unpack the distribution sets, replacing your old binaries. After unpacking these sets, it runs the postinstall(8) script to perform various system cleanup and configuration update tasks. If postinstall produces errors, you will have to manually resolve the issues it brings up. See postinstall's man page for more information. Even after a successful postinstall run, it is advisable to use etcupdate(8) to aid in merging any other configuration changes. You should also read the remarks in INSTALL about upgrading, as specific compatibility issues are documented there. Figure 4.8. Upgrade complete Upgrade complete When you are back at the main menu, remove the boot medium (if applicable) and reboot. Have fun with your new version of NetBSD! 4.2. Using sysupgrade The sysupgrade utility (currently found in pkgsrc/sysutils/sysupgrade) allows you to upgrade a running system to a newer binary release. Note Take care when upgrading across major releases - ensure your running kernel is never newer than the userspace. One of the benefits of sysupgrade is that it is an integrated and almost-unattended solution: the tool fetches the new kernel and distribution sets from remote sites if you desire and performs the upgrade without user intervention until new changes to the configuration files need to be merged. Let's assume you are running NetBSD/amd64 9.1 and you wish to upgrade to NetBSD 9.2. The procedure to do so would be to run the following command: # sysupgrade auto https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.2/amd64 And that's all that it takes. This will proceed to download the kernel and sets appropriate for your machine, unpack them and assist you in merging new configuration changes. Do not forget to reboot afterwards. When upgrading between major releases (e.g. between NetBSD 8.2 and 9.2), take care to first upgrade the kernel and modules: # sysupgrade fetch https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.2/amd64 # sysupgrade kernel # sysupgrade modules # reboot # sysupgrade sets # sysupgrade etcupdate # sysupgrade postinstall # sysupgrade clean # reboot For more details, please see the included sysupgrade(8) manual page and the / usr/pkg/etc/sysupgrade.conf configuration file. Part III. System configuration, administration and tuning Table of Contents 5. The first steps on NetBSD 5.1. Troubleshooting 5.1.1. Boot problems 5.1.2. Misconfiguration of /etc/rc.conf 5.2. The man command 5.3. Editing configuration files 5.4. Login 5.5. Changing the root password 5.6. Adding users 5.7. Shadow passwords 5.8. Changing the keyboard layout 5.9. System time 5.10. Secure Shell (ssh(1)) 5.11. Basic configuration in /etc/rc.conf 5.12. Basic network settings 5.13. Mounting a CD-ROM 5.14. Mounting a floppy 5.15. Installing additional software 5.16. Security alerts 5.17. Stopping and rebooting the system 6. Editing 6.1. Introducing vi 6.1.1. The vi interface 6.1.2. Switching to Edit Mode 6.1.3. Switching Modes & Saving Buffers to Files 6.1.4. Yanking and Putting 6.1.5. Navigation in the Buffer 6.1.6. Searching a File, the Alternate Navigational Aid 6.1.7. A Sample Session 6.2. Configuring vi 6.2.1. Extensions to .exrc 6.2.2. Documentation 6.3. Using tags with vi 7. The rc.d System 7.1. Basics 7.2. The rc.d Scripts 7.2.1. Packages installing rc.d scripts 7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts 7.4. Additional Reading 8. Console drivers 8.1. wscons 8.1.1. wsdisplay 8.1.2. wskbd 8.1.3. wsmouse 9. The X Window System 9.1. What is X11 / Xorg? 9.2. Configuration 9.3. The keyboard 9.4. The monitor 9.5. Starting X 9.6. Customizing X 9.7. Other window managers or desktop environments 9.8. Graphical login with xdm 9.9. Using multiple or remote X servers 9.10. Further resources 10. Audio 10.1. Configuring the default audio device 10.2. Configuring the mixer and volume 10.2.1. Setting default mixer settings on boot 10.3. Pseudo audio devices 10.4. Recording and playback commands 10.4.1. audioplay(1) 10.4.2. audiorecord(1) 10.4.3. audioctl(1) 10.5. MIDI support 10.5.1. midirecord(1) 10.5.2. midiplay(1) 10.6. Intel HD Audio devices 10.6.1. Built-in and jacks: DACs/ADCs 10.6.2. HDMI/DisplayPort audio 11. Power management 11.1. Basic power management commands 11.1.1. Powering off or rebooting the system 11.1.2. Using ACPI sleep states (suspend and resume) 11.1.3. Suspending and resuming individual devices 11.1.4. Adjusting CPU frequency at runtime 11.1.5. Using IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) power saving mode 11.2. Sensors and monitoring 11.3. An introduction to powerd 11.3.1. Example: using powerd to suspend on lid close 11.3.2. Example: reducing CPU frequency when unplugged 12. Printing 12.1. Enabling the printer daemon 12.2. Configuring /etc/printcap 12.3. Configuring Ghostscript 12.4. Printer management commands 12.5. Remote printing 13. Using removable media 13.1. Initializing and using USB flash drives 13.2. Initializing and using floppy disks 13.3. How to use a ZIP disk 13.4. Reading data CDs with NetBSD 13.5. Reading multi-session CDs with NetBSD 13.6. Allowing normal users to access CDs 13.7. Mounting an ISO image 13.8. Using video CDs with NetBSD 13.9. Using audio CDs with NetBSD 13.10. Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD 13.11. Using a CD-R writer with data CDs 13.12. Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs 13.13. Creating an audio CD from MP3s 13.14. Copying an audio CD 13.15. Copying a data CD with two drives 13.16. Using CD-RW rewritables 13.17. DVD support 13.18. Creating ISO images from a CD 13.19. Getting volume information from CDs and ISO images 14. The cryptographic device driver (CGD) 14.1. Overview 14.1.1. Why use disk encryption? 14.1.2. Logical Disk Drivers 14.1.3. Availability 14.2. Components of the Crypto-Graphic Disk system 14.2.1. Kernel driver pseudo-device 14.2.2. Ciphers 14.2.3. Obsolete Ciphers 14.2.4. Verification Methods 14.3. Example: encrypting your disk 14.3.1. Preparing the disk 14.3.2. Scrubbing the disk 14.3.3. Creating the cgd 14.3.4. Modifying configuration files 14.3.5. Restoring data 14.4. Example: encrypted CDs/DVDs 14.4.1. Creating an encrypted CD/DVD 14.4.2. Using an encrypted CD/DVD 14.5. Example: encrypted iSCSI devices 14.5.1. Creating an encrypted iSCSI device 14.5.2. Device Initialisation 14.5.3. Unmounting the Encrypted Device 14.5.4. Normal Usage 14.6. Suggestions and Warnings 14.6.1. Using a random-key cgd for swap 14.6.2. Warnings 14.7. Further Reading 15. Concatenated Disk Device (CCD) configuration 15.1. Install physical media 15.2. Configure Kernel Support 15.3. Disklabel each volume member of the CCD 15.4. Configure the CCD 15.5. Initialize the CCD device 15.6. Create a 4.2BSD/UFS filesystem on the new CCD device 15.7. Mount the filesystem 16. NetBSD RAIDframe 16.1. RAIDframe Introduction 16.1.1. About RAIDframe 16.1.2. A warning about Data Integrity, Backups, and High Availability 16.1.3. Getting Help 16.2. Setup RAIDframe Support 16.2.1. Kernel Support 16.2.2. Power Redundancy and Disk Caching 16.3. Example: RAID-1 Root Disk 16.3.1. Pseudo-Process Outline 16.3.2. Hardware Review 16.3.3. Initial Install on Disk0/wd0 16.3.4. Preparing Disk1/wd1 16.3.5. Initializing the RAID Device 16.3.6. Setting up Filesystems 16.3.7. Migrating System to RAID 16.3.8. The first boot with RAID 16.3.9. Adding Disk0/wd0 to RAID 16.3.10. Testing Boot Blocks 17. NetBSD Logical Volume Manager (LVM) configuration 17.1. Anatomy of NetBSD Logical Volume Manager 17.2. Install physical media 17.3. Configure Kernel Support 17.4. Disklabel each physical volume member of the LVM 17.5. Create Physical Volumes 17.6. Create Volume Group 17.7. Create Logical Volume 17.8. Example: LVM with Volume groups located on raid1 17.8.1. Loading Device-Mapper driver 17.8.2. Preparing raid1 installation 17.8.3. Creating PV, VG on raid disk 17.8.4. Creating LV's from VG located on raid disk 17.8.5. Integration of LV's in to the system 18. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) 18.1. About 18.2. Introduction 18.3. Terms and conventions 18.3.1. Definitions 18.3.2. Usage examples 18.4. PAM Essentials 18.4.1. Facilities and primitives 18.4.2. Modules 18.4.3. Chains and policies 18.4.4. Transactions 18.5. PAM Configuration 18.5.1. PAM policy files 18.5.2. Breakdown of a configuration line 18.5.3. Policies 18.6. PAM modules 18.6.1. Common Modules 18.6.2. NetBSD-specific PAM Modules 18.7. PAM Application Programming 18.8. PAM Module Programming 18.9. Sample PAM Application 18.10. Sample PAM Module 18.11. Sample PAM Conversation Function 18.12. Further Reading 19. Tuning NetBSD 19.1. Introduction 19.1.1. Overview 19.2. Tuning Considerations 19.2.1. General System Configuration 19.2.2. System Services 19.2.3. The NetBSD Kernel 19.3. Visual Monitoring Tools 19.3.1. The top Process Monitor 19.3.2. The sysstat utility 19.4. Monitoring Tools 19.4.1. fstat 19.4.2. iostat 19.4.3. ps 19.4.4. vmstat 19.5. Network Tools 19.5.1. ping 19.5.2. traceroute 19.5.3. netstat 19.5.4. tcpdump 19.6. Accounting 19.6.1. Accounting 19.6.2. Reading Accounting Information 19.6.3. How to Put Accounting to Use 19.7. Kernel Profiling 19.7.1. Getting Started 19.7.2. Interpretation of kgmon Output 19.7.3. Putting it to Use 19.7.4. Summary 19.8. System Tuning 19.8.1. Using sysctl 19.8.2. tmpfs & mfs 19.8.3. Journaling 19.8.4. LFS 19.9. Kernel Tuning 19.9.1. Preparing to Recompile a Kernel 19.9.2. Configuring the Kernel 19.9.3. Building the New Kernel 19.9.4. Shrinking the NetBSD kernel 20. NetBSD Veriexec subsystem 20.1. How it works 20.2. Signatures file 20.3. Generating fingerprints 20.4. Strict levels 20.5. Veriexec and layered file systems 20.6. Kernel configuration 21. Bluetooth on NetBSD 21.1. Introduction 21.2. Supported Hardware 21.3. System Configuration 21.4. Human Interface Devices 21.4.1. Mice 21.4.2. Keyboards 21.5. Personal Area Networking 21.5.1. Personal Area Networking User 21.6. Serial Connections 21.7. Audio 21.7.1. SCO Audio Headsets 21.7.2. SCO Audio Handsfree 21.8. Object Exchange 21.9. Troubleshooting 22. Miscellaneous operations 22.1. Installing the boot manager 22.2. Deleting the disklabel 22.3. Speaker 22.4. Forgot root password? 22.5. Password file is busy? 22.6. Adding a new hard disk 22.7. How to rebuild the devices in /dev Chapter 5. The first steps on NetBSD Table of Contents 5.1. Troubleshooting 5.1.1. Boot problems 5.1.2. Misconfiguration of /etc/rc.conf 5.2. The man command 5.3. Editing configuration files 5.4. Login 5.5. Changing the root password 5.6. Adding users 5.7. Shadow passwords 5.8. Changing the keyboard layout 5.9. System time 5.10. Secure Shell (ssh(1)) 5.11. Basic configuration in /etc/rc.conf 5.12. Basic network settings 5.13. Mounting a CD-ROM 5.14. Mounting a floppy 5.15. Installing additional software 5.16. Security alerts 5.17. Stopping and rebooting the system After installing and rebooting, the computer will boot from the hard disk. If everything went well you'll be looking at the login prompt within a few seconds (or minutes, depending on your hardware). The system is not yet fully configured, but basic configuration is easy. You will see how to quickly configure some important things, and in doing so you will learn some basics about how the system works. 5.1. Troubleshooting 5.1.1. Boot problems If the system does not boot it could be that the boot manager was not installed correctly or that there is a problem with the MBR (Master Boot Record). Boot the machine from your install medium (CD, DVD, floppy, etc.) and when you see the boot menu, select the option to drop to the boot prompt. type "?" or "help" for help. > ? commands are: boot [xdNx:][filename] [-12acdqsvxz] (ex. "hd0a:netbsd.old -s") ls [path] dev xd[N[x]]: consdev {pc|com[0123]|com[0123]kbd|auto} modules {enabled|disabled} load {path_to_module} multiboot [xdNx:][filename] [] help|? quit > boot hd0a:netbsd The system should now boot from the hard disk. If NetBSD boots correctly from the hard disk, there is probably a Master Boot Record problem. You can install the boot manager or modify its configuration with the fdisk -B command. See Section 22.1, "Installing the boot manager" for a detailed description. 5.1.2. Misconfiguration of /etc/rc.conf If you or the installation software haven't done any configuration of /etc/ rc.conf (sysinst normally will), the system will drop you into single user mode and show the message /etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted When the system asks you to choose a shell, simply press RETURN to get to a / bin/sh prompt. If you are asked for a terminal type, respond with vt220 (or whatever is appropriate for your terminal type) and press RETURN. You may need to type one of the following commands to get your delete key to work properly, depending on your keyboard: # stty erase '^h' # stty erase '^?' At this point, you need to configure at least one file in the /etc directory. However, the root file system (/) is mounted read-only, so you will first need to make it writable with: # /sbin/mount -u -w / Next, take a look at the /etc/rc.conf file. Modify it to your tastes, making sure that you set "rc_configured=YES " so that you don't end up in this position again. Default values for the various programs can be found in /etc/ defaults/rc.conf. More complete documentation can be found in rc.conf(5). When you have finished, type exit at the prompt to leave the single-user shell and continue with the multi-user boot. 5.2. The man command If you have never used a Unix(-like) operating system before, your best friend is now the man command, which displays a manual page. The NetBSD manual pages are among the best and most detailed you can find, although they are very technical. A good manual to read after booting a new NetBSD system is afterboot(8). It contains information about various necessary and useful configuration settings. man name shows the man page of the "name" command and man -k name shows a list of man pages dealing with "name" (you can also use the apropos command). To learn the basics of the man command, type: # man man Manual pages contain not only information about commands but also descriptions of some NetBSD features and structures. For example, take a look at the hier(7) man page, which describes in detail the layout of the filesystem used by NetBSD. # man hier Other similar pages are release(7) and pkgsrc(7). # man 8 intro Manual pages are divided in several sections, depending on what they document: 1. general commands (tools and utilities), see intro(1) 2. system calls and error numbers, see intro(2) 3. C libraries, see intro(3) 4. special files and hardware support, see intro(4) 5. file formats, see intro(5) 6. games, see intro(6) 7. miscellaneous information pages, see intro(7) 8. system maintenance and operation commands, see intro(8) 9. kernel internals, see intro(9) A subject may appear in more than one section of the manual; to view a specific page, supply the section number as an argument to the man command. For example, time appears in section 1 (the time user command) and in section 3 (the time function of the C library). To see the man page for the time C function, write: # man 3 time To see all the available pages: # man -w time # man -a time 5.3. Editing configuration files Other than a shell, a text editor is the most essential tool for NetBSD system administration. There are two provided in the base system * ed(1), a line orientated text editor. ed is a very simplistic text editor. It has a command mode (active when first started) and an input mode. Its primary advantage is that it will work even without a correct terminal type set. In an emergency, ed is worth knowing, but note that vi(1) is available in /rescue, which brings us to... * vi(1), a screen orientated text editor. vi is the only screen editor available in the base install, and requires a valid terminal type to run. Refer to Chapter 6, Editing to learn more about NetBSD's default editor. Advice Before you continue you should know or learn how to open, edit and save files within vi. Make sure to read Chapter 6, Editing. 5.4. Login For the first login you will use the root user, which is the only user defined at the end of the installation. At the password prompt type the password for root that you set during the installation. If you didn't set a password, just press Enter. NetBSD/i386 (Amnesiac) (ttyE0) login: root password: We recommend creating a non-root account and using su(1) for root access. # 5.5. Changing the root password If you did not set a password for root during the installation, you should use the /usr/bin/passwd command to do so now. # /usr/bin/passwd Changing local password for root. New password: Retype new password: Passwords are not displayed on the screen while you type. Choose a password that has numbers, digits, and special characters (not space) as well as from the upper and lower case alphabet. Do not choose any word in any language. It is common for an intruder to use dictionary attacks. 5.6. Adding users For security reasons, it is bad practice to login as root during regular use and maintenance of the system. Instead, administrators are encouraged to add a regular user, add the user to the wheel group, then use the su(1) command when root privileges are required. NetBSD offers the useradd(8) utility to create user accounts. For example, to create a new user: # useradd -m joe The defaults for the useradd command can be changed; see the useradd(8) man page. User accounts that can su to root are required to be in the "wheel" group. This can be done when the account is created by specifying a secondary group: # useradd -m -G wheel joe As an alternative, the usermod(8) command can be used to add a user to an existing group: # usermod -G wheel joe In case you just created a user but forgot to set a password, you can still do that later using the passwd(1) command. # passwd joe Note You can edit /etc/group directly to add users to groups, but do not edit the / etc/passwd directly; use vipw(8). 5.7. Shadow passwords Shadow passwords are enabled by default. What this means is that all the passwords in /etc/passwd are simply "*"; the encrypted passwords are stored in a file that can only be read by root, /etc/master.passwd. When you start vipw (8) to edit the password file, the program opens a copy of /etc/master.passwd; when you exit, vipw checks the validity of the copy, creates a new /etc/passwd and installs the new /etc/master.passwd file. Finally, vipw launches pwd_mkdb (8), which creates the files /etc/pwd.db and /etc/spwd.db, two databases which are equivalent to /etc/passwd and /etc/master.passwd but faster to process. It is very important to always use vipw and the other tools for account administration (chfn(1), chsh(1), chpass(1), passwd(1)) and to never directly modify /etc/master.passwd or /etc/passwd. 5.8. Changing the keyboard layout If you do not have a US layout keyboard, you will probably want to change keymaps. For example, to use an italian keyboard, enter the following command: # wsconsctl -k -w encoding=it encoding -> it To save the keyboard layout permanently, add the following line to the /etc/ wscons.conf file: encoding it See Section 8.1.2.1, "Keyboard mappings" for a list of available keymaps. 5.9. System time NetBSD, like all Unix systems, uses a system clock based on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and this is what you should set your system clock to. If you want to keep the system clock set to the local time (because, for example, you have a dual boot system with Windows installed), you must notify NetBSD, adding rtclocaltime=YES to /etc/rc.conf: # echo rtclocaltime=YES >> /etc/rc.conf # sh /etc/rc.d/rtclocaltime restart Note Alternatively, it is possible to configure Windows 7 and beyond to cope with the RTC being UTC. As alluded to in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, the way to do this is to add a DWORD registry key named RealTimeIsUniversal, with a value of 1, to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ TimeZoneInformation. The number of minutes west of GMT is calculated automatically and is set in the kern.rtc_offset sysctl variable. To display the current setting of the kern.rtc_offset variable: # sysctl kern.rtc_offset kern.rtc_offset = -60 This automatic configuration only works if you have set the proper time zone with a symbolic link to /etc/localtime. Normally this is done as part of the install procedure, but if for some reason it wasn't, you can set it by creating a symbolic link from a file in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory to /etc/ localtime. The following example sets the time zone to Eastern Europe Summer Time: # ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Helsinki /etc/localtime 5.10. Secure Shell (ssh(1)) By default, all services are disabled in a fresh NetBSD installation, and ssh (1) is no exception. You may wish to enable it so you can log in to your system remotely. Set sshd=YES in /etc/rc.conf and then start the server with the command # /etc/rc.d/sshd start The first time the server is started, it will generate a new keypair, which will be stored inside the directory /etc/ssh. 5.11. Basic configuration in /etc/rc.conf NetBSD uses /etc/rc.conf to determine what will be executed when the system boots. Understanding this file is important. The rc.conf(5) manual page contains a detailed description of all available options. The /etc/defaults/rc.conf file contains the default values for most settings. To override a default value, the new value must be put into /etc/rc.conf. The definitions there override the ones in /etc/defaults/rc.conf (which you should leave unchanged). # man rc.conf The first modifications are: * Set "rc_configured=YES" (this modification should already have been done by the installation software.) * Set "dhcpcd=YES" to configure your system's network using DHCP. * Define a hostname for your machine (use a fully qualified hostname, i.e., one including domain). If you have a standalone machine you can use any name (for example, vigor3.your.domain). If your machine is connected to a network, you should supply the correct name. * If your machine is connected to a local network or the Internet through a router, set the defaultroute variable to the IP address of your router (sometimes called a default gateway). For example, "defaultroute= 192.168.1.1". 5.12. Basic network settings To resolve the names and IP addresses of remote hosts, the system needs access to a (remote or local) DNS nameserver. Tell the system which nameserver(s) to use by adding the IP address of one or more nameservers to the /etc/resolv.conf file, using the following as an example: nameserver 145.253.2.75 To set the names of local hosts that are not available through DNS, edit the / etc/hosts file, which has the form: IP-address hostname host For example: 192.168.1.3 vigor3.your.domain vigor3 5.13. Mounting a CD-ROM New users are often surprised by the fact that although the installation program recognized and mounted their CD-ROM perfectly, the installed system seems to have "forgotten" how to use the CD-ROM. There is no special magic for using a CD-ROM; you can mount it like any other file system. All you need to know is the device name and some options to the mount(8) command. You can find the device name with the aforementioned dmesg(8) command. For example, if dmesg displays: # dmesg | grep ^cd cd0 at atapibus0 drive 1: type 5 cdrom removable the device name is cd0, and you can mount the CD-ROM with the following commands: # mkdir /cdrom # mount -t cd9660 -o ro /dev/cd0a /cdrom To make things easier, you can add a line to the /etc/fstab file: /dev/cd0a /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto 0 0 Without the need to reboot, you can now mount the CD-ROM with: # mount /cdrom When the CD-ROM is mounted you can't eject it manually; you will have to unmount it before you can do that: # umount /cdrom There is also a software command which unmounts the CD-ROM and ejects it: # eject /dev/cd0a 5.14. Mounting a floppy To mount a floppy you must know the name of the floppy device and the file system type of the floppy. Read the fdc(4) manpage for more information about device naming, as this will differ depending on the exact size and kind of your floppy disk. For example, to read and write a floppy in MS-DOS format you use the following command: # mount -t msdos /dev/fd0a /mnt Instead of /mnt, you can use another directory of your choice; you could, for example, create a /floppy directory like you did for the CD-ROM. If you do a lot of work with MS-DOS floppies, you will want to install the mtools package, which enables you to access a MS-DOS floppy (or hard disk partition) without the need to mount it. It is very handy for quickly copying a file to or from a floppy: # mcopy foo bar a: # mcopy a:baz.txt baz # mcopy a:\*.jpg . 5.15. Installing additional software Using packages from pkgsrc If you wish to install any of the software freely available for UNIX-like systems you are strongly advised to first check the NetBSD package system, pkgsrc. pkgsrc automatically handles any changes necessary to make the software run on NetBSD. This includes the retrieval and installation of any other packages on which the software may depend. * See the list of available packages * Precompiled binaries are available on the NetBSD FTP server for most ports. To install them the PKG_PATH variable needs to be adjusted in the following way (under the sh(1) shell): # PKG_PATH="https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/$(uname -p)/$(uname -r | cut -d_ -f1)/All" # export PKG_PATH Applications can now be installed by the superuser root with the pkg_add command: # pkg_add -v perl # pkg_add -v apache # pkg_add -v firefox The above commands will install the Perl programming language, Apache web server, and the Firefox web browser as well as all the packages they depend on. It is recommended you install and use pkgin for most non-trivial binary package management tasks, and managing upgrades. pkgin can be installed from the post-installation configuration menu in sysinst, or afterwards using pkg_add on a live system: # pkg_add -v pkgin It maintains a local database of packages that are on the remote server, you can fetch the database with: # pkgin update Its usage is oriented on the package tools you have with other operating systems. To search the package database for a word `stat`, use # pkgin search WORD To install a package (in this case `fscd`), just type # pkgin install fluxbox To upgrade installed packages: # pkgin upgrade You should read the manpage to know about more actions you can do with pkgin. All details about package management can be found in The pkgsrc guide Storing third-party software On many UNIX-like systems the directory structure under /usr/local is reserved for applications and files which are independent of the system's software management. This convention is the reason why most software developers expect their software to be installed under /usr/local. NetBSD has no /usr/local directory, but it can be created manually if needed. NetBSD does not care about anything installed under /usr/local, so this task is left to you as the system administrator. 5.16. Security alerts By the time that you have installed your system, it is quite likely that bugs in the release have been found. All significant and easily fixed problems will be reported at http://www.NetBSD.org/support/security/. It is recommended that you check this page regularly. 5.17. Stopping and rebooting the system Use one of the following two shutdown commands to halt or reboot the system: # shutdown -h now # shutdown -r now Two other commands to perform the same tasks are: # halt # reboot halt, reboot and shutdown are not synonyms: the latter is more sophisticated. On a multiuser system you should really use shutdown, which allows you to schedule a shutdown time and notify users. It will also take care to stop processes properly. For more information, see the shutdown(8), halt(8) and reboot(8) manpages. Chapter 6. Editing Table of Contents 6.1. Introducing vi 6.1.1. The vi interface 6.1.2. Switching to Edit Mode 6.1.3. Switching Modes & Saving Buffers to Files 6.1.4. Yanking and Putting 6.1.5. Navigation in the Buffer 6.1.6. Searching a File, the Alternate Navigational Aid 6.1.7. A Sample Session 6.2. Configuring vi 6.2.1. Extensions to .exrc 6.2.2. Documentation 6.3. Using tags with vi 6.1. Introducing vi It is not like the vi editor needs introducing to seasoned UNIX users. The vi editor, originally developed by Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, is an endlessly extensible, easy to use light ASCII editor and the bane of the newbie existence. This section will introduce the vi editor to the newbie and perhaps toss in a few ideas for the seasoned user as well. The first half of this section will overview editing, saving, yanking/putting and navigating a file within a vi session. The second half will be a step by step sample vi session to help get started. This is intended as a primer for using the vi editor, it is not by any means a thorough guide. It is meant to get the first time user up and using vi with enough skills to make changes to and create files. 6.1.1. The vi interface Using the vi editor really is not much different than any other terminal based software with one exception, it does not use a tab type (or curses if you will) style interface, although many versions of vi do use curses it does not give the same look and feel of the typical curses based interface. Instead it works in two modes, command and edit. While this may seem strange, it is not much different than windows based editing if you think about it. Take this as an example, if you are using say gedit and you take the mouse, highlight some text, select cut and then paste, the whole time you are using the mouse you are not editing (even though you can). In vi, the same action is done by simply deleting the whole line with dd in command mode, moving to the line you wish to place it below and hitting p in command mode. One could almost say the analogy is "mouse mode vs. command mode" (although they are not exactly identical, conceptually the idea is similar). To start up a vi session, one simply begins the way they might with any terminal based software: $ vi filename One important note to remember here is that when a file is edited, it is loaded into a memory buffer. The rest of the text will make reference to the buffer and file in their proper context. A file only changes when the user has committed changes with one of the write commands. 6.1.2. Switching to Edit Mode The vi editor sports a range of options one can provide at start up, for the time being we will just look at the default startup. When invoked as shown above, the editor's default startup mode is command mode, so in essence you cannot commence to typing into the buffer. Instead you must switch out out of command mode to enter text. The following text describes edit start modes: a     Append after cursor. A     Append to end of line. C     Change the rest of current line. cw    Change the current word. i     Insert before cursor. I     Insert before first non blank line. o     Open a line below for insert O     Open a line above for insert. 6.1.3. Switching Modes & Saving Buffers to Files Of course knowing the edit commands does not do much good if you can't switch back to command mode and save a file, to switch back simply hit the ESC key. To enter certain commands, the colon must be used. Write commands are one such set of commands. To do this, simply enter :. Hitting the colon then will put the user at the colon (or command if you will) prompt at the bottom left corner of the screen. Now let us look at the save commands: :w    Write the buffer to file. :wq   Write the buffer to file and quit. 6.1.4. Yanking and Putting What good is an editor if you cannot manipulate blocks of text? Of course vi supports this feature as well and as with most of the vi commands it somewhat intuitive. To yank a line but not delete it, simply enter yy or Y in command mode and the current line will be copied into a buffer. To put the line somewhere, navigate to the line above where the line is to be put and hit the p key for the "put" command. To move a line, simply delete the whole line with the dd command, navigate and put. 6.1.4.1. Oops I Did Not Mean to do that! Undo is pretty simple, u undoes the last action and U undoes the last line deleted or changes made on the last line. 6.1.5. Navigation in the Buffer Most vi primers or tutorials start off with navigation, however, not unlike most editors in order to navigate a file there must be something to navigate to and from (hence why this column sort of went in reverse). Depending on your flavor of vi (or if it even is vi and not say elvis, nvi or vim) you can navigate in both edit and command mode. For the beginner I feel that switching to command mode and then navigating is a bit safer until one has practiced for awhile. The navigation keys for terminals that are not recognized or do not support the use of arrow keys are the following: k     Moves the cursor up one line. j     Moves the cursor down one line. l     Moves the cursor right one character. h     Moves the cursor left one character. If the terminal is recognized and supports them, the arrow keys can be used to navigate the buffer in command mode. In addition to simple "one spot navigation" vi supports jumping to a line by simply typing in the line number at the colon prompt. For example, if you wanted to jump to line 223 the keystrokes from editor mode would look like so: ESC :223 6.1.6. Searching a File, the Alternate Navigational Aid The vi editor supports searching using regular expression syntax, however, it is slightly different to invoke from command mode. One simply hits the / key in command mode and enters what they are searching for, as an example let us say I am searching for the expression foo: /foo That is it, to illustrate a slightly different expression, let us say I am looking for foo bar: /foo bar 6.1.6.1. Additional Navigation Commands Searching and scrolling are not the only ways to navigate a vi buffer. Following is a list of succinct navigation commands available for vi: 0     Move to beginning of line. $     Move to end of line. b     Back up one word. w     Move forward one word. G     Move to the bottom of the buffer. H     Move to the top line on the screen. L     Move to the last line on the screen. M     Move the cursor to the middle of the screen. N     Scan for next search match but opposite direction. n     Scan for next search match in the same direction. 6.1.7. A Sample Session Now that we have covered the basics, let us run a sample session using a couple of the items discussed so far. First, we open an empty file into the buffer from the command line like so: # vi foo.txt Next we switch to edit mode and enter two lines separated by an empty line, remember our buffer is empty so we hit the i key to insert before cursor and enter some text: This is some text there we skipped a line ~ ~ ~ ~ Now hit the ESC key to switch back into command mode. Now that we are in command mode, let us save the file. First, hit the : key, the cursor should be sitting in the lower left corner right after a prompt. At the : prompt enter w and hit the ENTER or RETURN key. The file has just been saved. There should have been a message to that effect, some vi editors will also tell you the name, how many lines and the size of the file as well. It is time to navigate, the cursor should be sitting wherever it was when the file was saved. Try using the arrow keys to move around a bit. If they do not work (or you are just plain curious) try out the hjkl keys to see how they work. Finally, let us do two more things, first, navigate up to the first line and then to the first character. Try out some of the other command mode navigation keys on that line, hit the following keys a couple of times: $ 0 $ 0 The cursor should hop to the end of line, back to the beginning and then to the end again. Next, search for an expression by hitting the / key and an expression like so: /we The cursor should jump to the first occurrence of we. Now save the file and exit using write and quit: :wq 6.2. Configuring vi The standard editor supplied with NetBSD is, needless to say, vi, the most loved and hated editor in the world. If you don't use vi, skip this section, otherwise read it before installing other versions of vi. NetBSD's vi (nvi) was written by Keith Bostic of UCB to have a freely redistributable version of this editor and has many powerful extensions worth learning while being still very compatible with the original vi. Nvi has become the standard version of vi for BSD. Amongst the most interesting extensions are: * Extended regular expressions (egrep style), enabled with option extended. * Tag stacks. * Infinite undo (to undo, press u; to continue undoing, press .). * Incremental search, enabled with the option searchincr. * Left-right scrolling of lines, enabled with the option leftright; the number of columns to scroll is defined by the sidescroll option. * Command line history editing, enabled with the option cedit. * Filename completion, enabled by the filec option. * Backgrounded screens and displays. * Split screen editing. 6.2.1. Extensions to .exrc The following example shows a .exrc file with some extended options enabled. set showmode ruler set filec=^[ set cedit=^[ The first line enables the display of the cursor position (row and column) and of the current mode (Command, Insert, Append) on the status line. The second line (where ^[ is the ESC character) enables filename completion with the ESC character. The third line enables command line history editing (also with the ESC character.) For example, writing ":" and then pressing ESC opens a window with a list of the previous commands which can be edited and executed (pressing Enter on a command executes it.) 6.2.2. Documentation The misc installation set (misc.tgz) contains a lot of useful documentation on (n)vi and ex, and when installed it is available in /usr/share/doc directory. For example: * Edit: A tutorial - /usr/share/doc/usd/edit/edit.{ps.gz,txt} * Ex Reference Manual - /usr/share/doc/reference/ref1/ex/reference. {ps.gz,txt} * Vi man page - vi(1) * An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi by William Joy and Mark Horton - /usr/share/doc/usd/vi/vitut.{ps.gz,txt} * Vi/Ex Reference Manual by Keith Bostic - /usr/share/doc/reference/ref1/vi/ vi.{ps.gz,txt} * Ex/Vi Quick Reference - /usr/share/doc/usd/vi/summary.{ps.gz,txt} If you have never used vi, An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi by William Joy and Mark Horton is a very good starting point. If you want to learn more about vi and the nvi extensions you should read the Vi/Ex Reference Manual by Keith Bostic which documents all the editor's commands and options. 6.3. Using tags with vi This topic is not directly related to NetBSD but it can be useful, for example, for examining the kernel sources. When you examine a set of sources in a tree of directories and subdirectories you can simplify your work using the tag feature of vi. The method is the following: 1. cd to the base directory of the sources. $ cd /path 2. Write the following commands: $ find . -name "*.[ch]" > filelist $ cat filelist | xargs ctags 3. Add the following line to .exrc set tags=/path/tags (substitute the correct path instead of path.) Chapter 7. The rc.d System Table of Contents 7.1. Basics 7.2. The rc.d Scripts 7.2.1. Packages installing rc.d scripts 7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts 7.4. Additional Reading NetBSD uses individual scripts for controlling services, similar to what System V does, but without runlevels. This chapter is an overview of the rc.d system and its configuration. 7.1. Basics The system startup files reside in the /etc directory. They are: * /etc/rc * /etc/rc.conf * /etc/rc.d/* * /etc/rc.local * /etc/rc.shutdown * /etc/rc.subr * /etc/defaults/* * /etc/rc.conf.d/* First, an overview of the control and support scripts (also documented in rc(8) ). * After the kernel has initialized all devices at startup, it starts init(8), which in turn runs /etc/rc. * /etc/rc sorts the scripts in /etc/rc.d using rcorder(8) and then runs them in that order. See the rcorder(8) man page for details of how the order of rc.d scripts is determined. * /etc/rc.subr contains common functions used by /etc/rc and various rc.d scripts. * When shutting down the system with shutdown(8), /etc/rc.shutdown is run, which runs the scripts in /etc/rc.d in reverse order (as defined by rcorder (8)). Note that if you shut down the system using the halt(8) command, these scripts will not be run. Additional scripts outside of the rc.d directory: * /etc/rc.local is almost the last script called at boot up. This script can be edited by the administrator to start local daemons that don't fit the rc.d model. rc.d scripts are controlled by a central configuration file, /etc/rc.conf, which loads its default settings from /etc/defaults/rc.conf. If you want to change a default setting, do not edit /etc/defaults/rc.conf; instead, apply the setting in /etc/rc.conf. This will override the default. It is a good idea to read the rc.conf(5) man page to learn about the services that are available to you. The following example shows how to enable the SSH daemon, which is disabled by default: # cd /etc; grep ssh defaults/rc.conf sshd=NO sshd_flags="" # echo "sshd=YES" >> rc.conf Now sshd(8) will be started automatically at system startup. The next section describes how to start and stop services at any time. Last but not least, files can be created in the /etc/rc.conf.d/ directory to override the behavior of a given rc.d script without editing the script itself. 7.2. The rc.d Scripts The actual scripts that control services are in /etc/rc.d. These scripts are automatically run at boot time, but they can be called manually if necessary. The following example shows how to start the SSH daemon that we enabled in the previous section: # /etc/rc.d/sshd start Starting sshd. Later, if you wish to stop the SSH daemon, run the following command: # /etc/rc.d/sshd stop Stopping sshd. Waiting for PIDS: 123. The rc.d scripts take one of the following arguments: * start * stop * restart * status Some scripts may support other arguments (e.g., "reload"), but every script will support at least the above commands. As an example, after adding a new record to a named(8) database, the daemon can be told to reload its configuration files with the following command: # /etc/rc.d/named reload Reloading named config files. Note that all of the commands discussed above will only take action if the particular service is enabled in /etc/rc.conf. It is possible to bypass this requirement by prepending "one" to the command, as in: # /etc/rc.d/httpd onestart Starting httpd. The above command will allow you to start the httpd(8) service one time. To stop a service that has been started in this manner, pass "onestop" to the script. 7.2.1. Packages installing rc.d scripts Several packages install rc.d scripts. By default package rc.d scripts can be found in /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d and need to be manually copied to /etc/ rc.d in order to be used. Setting PKG_RCD_SCRIPTS=yes environment variable prior installing packages enable automatic copying rc.d scripts to /etc/rc.d. 7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts The startup system of every Unix system determines, in one way or another, the order in which services are started. On some Unix systems this is done by numbering the files and/or putting them in separate run level directories. Solaris relies on wildcards like /etc/rc[23].d/S* being sorted numerically when expanded. Some simply put all the commands that should be started into a single monolithic script (this is the traditional BSD method, and is what NetBSD did before the rc.d system). On modern NetBSD this is done by the rc.d scripts and their contents. Please note that NetBSD does not use multiple runlevels. At the beginning of each rc.d script there is a series of commented out lines that have one of the following items in them: * REQUIRE * PROVIDE * BEFORE * KEYWORD These describe the dependencies of that particular script and allow rcorder to easily work either "up" or "down" as the situation requires. As an example, here is the ordering information contained in /etc/rc.d/nfsd: ... PROVIDE: nfsd REQUIRE: rpcbind mountd ... Here we can see that this script provides the "nfsd" service and that it requires "rpcbind" and "mountd" to be running first. The rcorder(8) utility is used at system startup time to read through all the rc.d scripts and determine the order in which they should be run. 7.4. Additional Reading Luke Mewburn, one of the principal designers of the rc.d system, gave a presentation on the system at USENIX 2001. It is available in PDF format. Chapter 8. Console drivers Table of Contents 8.1. wscons 8.1.1. wsdisplay 8.1.2. wskbd 8.1.3. wsmouse 8.1. wscons Wscons is NetBSD's platform-independent workstation console driver. It handles complete abstraction of keyboards and mice. This means that you can plug in several keyboards or mice and they will be multiplexed onto a single terminal, but also that it can multiplex several virtual terminals onto one physical terminal. Wscons support is enabled by default on most architectures. This can be done manually by adding wscons=YES to your /etc/rc.conf. Then configure the desired number of virtual consoles as described in Section 8.1.1.1, "Virtual consoles" and start wscons by entering sh /etc/rc.d/wscons start followed by sh /etc/rc.d /ttys restart. You can now switch virtual consoles by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Fn or similar, depending on the platform. Wscons comprises three subsystems: wsdisplay, wskbd and wsmouse. These subsystems handle abstraction for all display, keyboard and mouse devices respectively. The following sections discuss the configuration of wscons per subsystem. 8.1.1. wsdisplay This section will explain how to configure display and screen-related options. 8.1.1.1. Virtual consoles The number of pre-allocated virtual console is controlled by the following kernel configuration option options WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS=4 Other consoles can be added by enabling the relevant lines in the /etc/ wscons.conf file: the comment mark (#) must be removed from the lines beginning with screen x. In the following example a fifth console is added to the four pre-allocated ones: # screens to create # idx screen emul #screen 0 - vt100 screen 1 - vt100 screen 2 - vt100 screen 3 - vt100 screen 4 - - #screen 4 80x25bf vt100 #screen 5 80x50 vt100 The /etc/rc.d/wscons script transforms each of the non commented lines in a call to the wsconscfg command: the columns become the parameters of the call. The idx column becomes the index parameter, the screen column becomes the -t type parameter (which defines the type of screen: rows and columns, number of colors, ...) and the emul column becomes the -e emul parameter, which defines the emulation. For example: screen 3 - vt100 becomes a call to: wsconscfg -e vt100 3 Please note that it is possible to have a (harmless) conflict between the consoles pre-allocated by the kernel and the consoles allocated at boot time through /etc/wscons.conf. If during boot the system tries to allocate an already allocated screen, the following message will be displayed: wsconscfg: WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device busy The solution is to comment out the offending lines in /etc/wscons.conf. Note that while it is possible to delete a screen and add it with different settings, it is, technically speaking, not possible to actually modify the settings of a screen. screen 0 cannot be deleted if used as system console. This implies that the setting of screen 0 cannot be changed in a running system, if used as system console. The virtual console must also be active in /etc/ttys, so that NetBSD runs the getty(8) program to ask for login. For example: console "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" pc3 off secure ttyE0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE2 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 off secure ... When starting up the X server, it will look for a virtual console with no getty (8) program running, e.g. one console should left as "off" in /etc/ttys. The line ttyE3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 off secure of /etc/ttys is used by the X server for this purpose. To use a screen different from number 4, a parameter of the form vtn must be passed to the X server, where n is the number of the function key used to activate the screen for X. For example, screen 7 could be enabled in /etc/wscons.conf and X could be started with vt8. If you use xdm you must edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers. For example: :0 local /usr/X11R7/bin/X +kb dpms -bpp 16 dpms vt8 8.1.1.1.1. Getting rid of the message WSDISPLAYIO_ADDSCREEN: Device busy This error message usually occurs when wsconscfg tries to add a screen which already exists. This occurs if you have a screen 0 line in your /etc/ wscons.conf file, because the kernel always allocates a screen 0 as the console device. The error message is harmless in this case, and you can get rid of it by deleting (or commenting out) the screen 0 line. 8.1.1.2. 50 lines text mode with wscons This mode is activated in the /etc/wscons.conf. The following line must be uncommented: font ibm - 8 ibm /usr/share/pcvt/fonts/vt220l.808 Then the following lines must be modified: #screen 0 80x50 vt100 screen 1 80x50 vt100 screen 2 80x50 vt100 screen 3 80x50 vt100 screen 4 80x50 vt100 screen 5 80x50 vt100 screen 6 80x50 vt100 screen 7 80x50 vt100 This configuration enables eight screens, which can be accessed with the key combination Ctrl-Alt-Fn (where n varies from 1 to 8); the corresponding devices are ttyE0..ttyE7. To enable them and get a login prompt, /etc/ttys must be modified: ttyE0 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE2 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE4 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE5 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE6 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure ttyE7 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" vt220 on secure screen 0 as system console can be set to another screen type at boot time on VGA displays. This is a kernel configuration option. If a non-80x25 setting is selected, it must be made sure that a usable font is compiled into the kernel, which would be an 8x8 one for 80x50. There is a problem with many ATI graphics cards which don't implement the standard VGA font switching logics: These need another kernel option to make a nonstandard console font work. An example set of kernel configuration options might be: options VGA_CONSOLE_SCREENTYPE="\"80x50\"" options VGA_CONSOLE_ATI_BROKEN_FONTSEL options FONT_VT220L8x8 8.1.1.3. Enabling framebuffer console On many architectures, there is only one type of screen mode: a graphical framebuffer mode. On machines with VGA graphics cards, there is a second mode: textmode. This is an optimized mode specially made for displaying text. Hence, this is the default console mode for GENERIC kernels on architectures where the graphics card is typically a VGA card (i386, amd64). However, you can enable a framebuffer on machines with VGA cards that support the VESA BIOS extension (VBE). VESA framebuffer mode is configured during boot(8) using the vesa command. 8.1.1.4. Enabling scrollback on the console You can enable scrolling back on wscons consoles by compiling the WSDISPLAY_SCROLLSUPPORT option into your kernel. Make sure you don't have option VGA_RASTERCONSOLE enabled at the same time though! See Chapter 34, Compiling the kernel for instructions on building a kernel. When you have a kernel with options WSDISPLAY_SCROLLSUPPORT running, you can scroll up on the console by pressing LEFT SHIFT plus PAGE UP/DOWN. Please note that this may not work on your system console (ttyE0)! 8.1.1.5. Wscons and colors 8.1.1.5.1. Changing the color of kernel messages It is possible to change the foreground and background color of kernel messages by setting the following options in kernel config files: options WS_KERNEL_FG=WSCOL_xxx options WS_KERNEL_BG=WSCOL_xxx The WSCOL_xxx color constants are defined in src/sys/dev/wscons/wsdisplayvar.h. You can easily customize many aspects of your display appearance: the colors used to print normal messages, the colors used to print kernel messages and the color used to draw a border around the screen. All of these details can be changed either from kernel options or through the wsconsctl(8) utility; the latter may be preferable if you don't want to compile your own kernel, as the default options in GENERIC are suitable to get this tip working. The following options can be set through wsconsctl(8): * border: The color of the screen border. Its respective kernel option is WSDISPLAY_BORDER_COLOR. * msg.default.attrs: The attributes used to print normal console messages. Its respective kernel options are WS_DEFAULT_COLATTR and WS_DEFAULT_MONOATTR (the former is used in color displays, while the latter is used in monochrome displays). * msg.default.bg: The background color used to print normal console messages. Its respective kernel option is WS_DEFAULT_BG. * msg.default.fg: The foreground color used to print normal console messages. Its respective kernel option is WS_DEFAULT_FG. * msg.kernel.attrs: The attributes used to print kernel messages and warnings. Its respective kernel options are WS_KERNEL_COLATTR and WS_KERNEL_MONOATTR (the former is used in color displays, while the latter is used in monochrome displays). * msg.kernel.bg: The background color used to print kernel messages and warnings. Its respective kernel option is WS_KERNEL_BG. * msg.kernel.fg: The foreground color used to print kernel messages and warnings. Its respective kernel option is WS_KERNEL_FG. The values accepted as colors are: black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan and white. The attributes are a comma separated list of one or more flags, which can be: reverse, hilit, blink and/or underline. For example, to emulate the look of one of those old Amstrad machines: wsconsctl -d -w border=blue msg.default.bg=blue msg.default.fg=white msg.default.attrs=hilit Or, to make your kernel messages appear red: wsconsctl -d -w msg.kernel.fg=red Note that, in older versions of NetBSD, only a subset of this functionality is available; more specifically, you can only change the kernel colors by changing kernel options, as explained above. Also note that not all drivers support these features, so you may not get correct results on all architectures. 8.1.1.5.2. Getting applications to use colors on the console NetBSD uses the terminfo database to tell applications what the current terminal's capabilities are. For example, some terminals don't support colors, some don't support underlining (PC VGA terminals don't, for example) etc. The TERM environment variable tells the terminfo library the type of terminal. It then refers to its database for the options. The default setting for TERM can be inspected by typing echo $TERM on the terminal of interest. Usually this is something like vt220. This terminal type doesn't support colors. On a typical PC console with 25 lines, you can change this value to wsvt25 instead, to get colors. This is done in the C shell (csh) by entering: setenv TERM wsvt25 In a Bourne-compatible shell (sh, ksh), you can enter: export TERM=wsvt25 If this does not work for you, you can try the ansi terminal type, which supports ANSI color codes. However, other functionality may be missing with this terminal type. You can have a look at the file /usr/share/misc/terminfo to see if you can find a useful match for your console type. 8.1.1.6. Loading alternate fonts There are several fonts in /usr/share/wscons/fonts that can be loaded as console fonts. This can be done with the wsfontload(8) command, for example: wsfontload -N ibm -h 8 -e ibm /usr/share/wscons/fonts/vt220l.808. This command loads the IBM-encoded (-e ibm) font in the file vt2201.808 which has a height of eight pixels (-h 8). Name it ibm for later reference (-N ibm). To actually display the font on the console, use the command wsconsctl -dw font =ibm. If you want to edit a font, you can use the old pcvt utils that are available in the sysutils/pcvt-utils package. 8.1.2. wskbd 8.1.2.1. Keyboard mappings Wscons also allows setting the keymap to map the keys on various national keyboards to the right characters. E.g. to set the keymap for an Italian keymap, run: # wsconsctl -k -w encoding=it encoding -> it This setting will last until the next reboot. To make it permanent, add a encoding line to /etc/wscons.conf: it will be executed automatically the next time you reboot. # cp /etc/wscons.conf /etc/wscons.conf.orig # echo encoding it >>/etc/wscons.conf Please be careful and type two > characters. If you type only one >, you will overwrite the file instead of adding a line. But that's why we always make backup files before touching critical files! A full list of keyboard mappings and variants can be found in wskbd(4). You can change the compiled in kernel default by adding options PCKBD_LAYOUT= KB_encoding where encoding is an uppercase entry from the list above (e.g.: PCKBD_LAYOUT=KB_FR). Variants can be bitwise or'd in (e.g.: PCKBD_LAYOUT=KB_US| KB_SWAPCTRLCAPS). Configuring the keyboard layout under X is described elsewhere. 8.1.2.1.1. Hacking wscons to add a keymap If your favourite keymap is not supported, you can start digging in src/sys/dev /wscons/wsksymdef.h and src/sys/dev/pckbport/wskbdmap_mfii.c to make your own. Be sure to send-pr a change-request PR with your work, so others can make use of it! You can test your keymap by using wsconsctl instead of directly hacking the keymaps into the keyboard mapping file. For example, to say keycode 51 without any modifiers should map to a comma, with shift it should map to a question mark, with alt it should map to a semicolon and with both alt and shift it should map to colon, issue the following command: wsconsctl -w "map += keycode 51=comma question semicolon colon" 8.1.2.2. Changing the keyboard repeat speed Keyboard repeat speed can be tuned using the wsconsctl(8) utility. There are two variables of interest: repeat.del1, which specifies the delay before character repetition starts, and repeat.deln, which sets the delay between each character repetition (once started). Let's see an example, assuming you want to accelerate keyboard speed. You could do, from the command line: wsconsctl -w repeat.del1=300 wsconsctl -w repeat.deln=40 Or, if you want this to happen automatically every time you boot up the system, you could add the following lines to /etc/wscons.conf: setvar repeat.del1=300 setvar repeat.deln=40 8.1.3. wsmouse 8.1.3.1. Serial mouse support The wsmouse device (part of wscons) does not directly support serial mice. The moused(8) daemon is provided to read serial mouse data, convert it into wsmouse events and inject them in wscons' event queue, so the mouse can be used through the abstraction layer provided by wsmouse. A typical use can be: moused -p /dev/tty00. This will try to determine the type of mouse connected to the first serial port and start reading its data. The moused(8) man page contains more examples. 8.1.3.2. Cut&paste on the console with wsmoused It is possible to use the mouse on the wscons console to mark (cut) text with one mouse button, and insert (paste) it again with another button. To do this, enable "wsmoused" in /etc/rc.conf, and start it: # echo wsmoused=yes >>/etc/rc.conf # sh /etc/rc.d/wsmoused start After that you can use the mouse to mark text with the left mouse button, and paste it with the right one. To tune the behaviour of wsmoused(8) see its manpage, which also describes the format of the wsmoused.conf(5) config file, an example of which can be found in /usr/share/examples/wsmoused. Chapter 9. The X Window System Table of Contents 9.1. What is X11 / Xorg? 9.2. Configuration 9.3. The keyboard 9.4. The monitor 9.5. Starting X 9.6. Customizing X 9.7. Other window managers or desktop environments 9.8. Graphical login with xdm 9.9. Using multiple or remote X servers 9.10. Further resources 9.1. What is X11 / Xorg? NetBSD uses the X Window System to provide a graphical interface. Please note that the X Window System is a rather bare bones framework. It acts as a base for modern desktop environments like MATE, or Xfce, but they are not part of the X Window System. NetBSD ships with the X Window System, but it does not include these desktop environments; they must be added via pkgsrc. When you start using X you'll find many new terms which you may find confusing at first. The basic elements are: * An X server running on top of the hardware. The X server provides a standard way to display graphics (including fonts for text display) and get mouse/keyboard/other input. On most NetBSD ports, the Xorg(1) display server is used. Other X servers included with NetBSD include Xnest(1), which runs an X server inside another X server as a window, and Xvfb(1), which runs an off-screen X server, and is typically used to provide a full remote-only desktop with x11/x11vnc. * X clients. These are the programs you directly interact with. They run on top of the X server. A web browser like Firefox is an example of an X client. X is network-transparent, which means that you can run X clients on one machine, and the X server (i.e., the display, with video hardware) on another machine. The X client picks a server to use as a display based on the DISPLAY environment variable, typically :0 for the first server, and :1 for the second. * A window manager running on top of the X server. The window manager is a special X client that is allowed to control the placement of windows. It can also "decorate" windows with standard "widgets" (usually these provide actions like window motion, resizing, iconifying, window killing, etc.). ctwm(1) is NetBSD's default window manager. * A desktop environment such as MATE, or Xfce. These are suites of integrated software designed to give you a well-defined range of software and a more or less common interface to each program. These typically include a window manager, file manager, web browser, email client, multimedia player, text editor, address book, help browser, etc. As you may have guessed, a desktop environment is not needed to use X, but many users will want to install one. * A compositor or compositing manager runs on the X server and redirects rendering to an off-screen buffer, typically using the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) hardware for final rendering. It can provide additional eye-candy and often VSync (vertical sync). Some window managers, typically those included with large desktop environments, include their own compositing managers. xcompmgr and x11/picom are external compositing managers. The X Window System is included with NetBSD as separate distribution sets, see Section 3.10, "Installation type". It can be added to an installed system with sysinst(8). On NetBSD, X11 lives under the filesystem hierarchy /usr/X11R7. Therefore, to use X, /usr/X11R7/bin must be in your shell's PATH. See ~/.profile. 9.2. Configuration In most cases, you will be able to start using X without any configuration at all, and startx will work just fine. In rare cases, however, configuration of the X server is required. This configuration file is located at /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The structure of the configuration file is described formally in xorg.conf(5). To generate an initial configuration file for your X server, run the command # X -configure This command should create a configuration file and place it in your home directory. To test the generated configuration file, run, e.g., # X -config ~/xorg.conf.new If this succeeds, you should see a crosshatched background and a cursor in the shape of an X. Try moving the cursor around to verify that the mouse is functional. You can then switch to another virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F#) or log in remotely and kill the X process. If the above test was successful, move the file into place as /etc/X11/ xorg.conf and you are ready to go. 9.3. The keyboard Even if you have already configured your keyboard for wscons (see Section 8.1, "wscons"), you need to configure it for X as well, at least if you want to use a non-US layout. An easy solution is to use setxkbmap(1) . Here is an example that shows how to use a Hebrew keyboard, with Ctrl-Alt used to switch layouts, and with the position of the Escape and Caps Lock keys swapped as an additional option: setxkbmap -option grp:alt_shift_toggle us,il \ -option caps:swapescape -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp If you wish to change the repeat rate of your keyboard, you can set it with the xset(1) command, which takes two arguments: delay and rate, respectively. The following example sets the initial delay to 200 milliseconds and the repeat rate to 30 per second: $ xset r 200 30 You can also run this command in your .xinitrc or .xsession file. See below ( Section 9.6, "Customizing X") for more information. 9.4. The monitor If X does not run at the resolution you think it should, first run xrandr and see if the resolution you want is listed. If your preferred resolution is listed in that command's output, you can change resolutions with, e.g., $ xrandr -s 1680x1050 xrandr can also be used to enable output to hot-plugged monitors. Managing outputs can be done graphically with the pkgsrc package x11/arandr. 9.5. Starting X You can start X with the following command: $ startx If your basic X server configuration is correct, you are left in the X environment with the default window manager (ctwm). If you want a more advanced window manager or desktop environment, many are available in pkgsrc. See Section 9.7, "Other window managers or desktop environments" for information about adding and changing window managers. 9.6. Customizing X One of the first things you will want to do is to change the programs that run when X is first started. The easiest way to do this is to copy the default .xinitrc file to your home directory and modify it, or create a simple new one from scratch. For example: $ cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc $ chmod u+w ~/.xinitrc $ vi ~/.xinitrc If you use xdm(1), ~/.xsession is used in place of ~/.xinitrc. The following example shows how to start the window manager (ctwm) and open an instance of the xterm and xterm programs. The screen background color is set to "bisque4", which is defined in /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb.txt. ... # start some programs - a basic clcok xclock -geometry 50x50-1-1 & # change the color of the "root window" ("desktop background") xsetroot -solid bisque4 & # spawn a terminal uxterm -geometry 80x34-1+1 -bg OldLace & exec ctwm -W # no '&' here With this type of setup, to quit X you must exit the window manager, which is usually done by selecting "exit" from its menu. The above example is very simple, but illustrates the basics of controlling the clients that are run when X is started. You can run any number of commands from your .xinitrc, including basic X configuration commands like xset b off to turn off the bell. 9.7. Other window managers or desktop environments If you don't like ctwm, which is a very simple window manager, you can install another window manager or a desktop environment from pkgsrc. The following example uses the Openbox window manager, but there are many others available in pkgsrc/wm. Openbox can be installed via binary packages or compiled with pkgsrc. As always, assuming a properly set PKG_PATH, the binary package method is: # pkgin in openbox To build it with pkgsrc, run: # cd /usr/pkgsrc/wm/openbox # make install Openbox is now installed; to start it you must modify your .xinitrc file: substitute the line which calls ctwm with a line which calls openbox. For example: # start some useful programs xclock -geometry 50x50-1-1 & # start window manager: exec openbox # no '&' here The startx command will start the X11 session with Openbox. As configured in the example .xinitrc file above, choosing "Log Out" from Openbox's menu will end the X11 session. Installing a desktop environment is almost as easy. The following example shows how to use the Xfce desktop environment. # pkgin in xfce4 Depending on your requirements, you may wish to enable dbus as a system-wide service. The following example demonstates how. (If you don't enable dbus to run as a system-wide service, startxfce4 will start dbus under your user account during initialization.) # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/dbus /etc/rc.d # echo dbus=YES >> /etc/rc.conf # service dbus start If you wish to be able to control your system's power state from within the desktop, the account you intend to run X under must also be a member of the " operator" group (see Section 5.6, "Adding users"). After running the above commands, edit your .xinitrc as above and change " openbox" (or "ctwm") to "startxfce4". The next time you run startx the Xfce desktop environment will be started. 9.8. Graphical login with xdm If you always use X and the first thing you do after you log in is run startx, you can set up a graphical login to do this automatically. It is very easy: 1. Create the .xsession file in your home directory. This file is similar to .xinitrc and can, in fact, be a link to it. $ ln -s .xinitrc ~/.xsession 2. Modify /etc/rc.conf, adding the following line: xdm=YES # x11 display manager 3. Start xdm(1) (or reboot your system, as this will be done automatically from now on): # service xdm start The configuration files for xdm are in the /etc/X11/xdm directory. The Xservers file specifies the virtual console that X is started on. It defaults to "vt05", which is the console you reach via "Ctrl+Alt+F5". If you want to use a different virtual console, change vt05 as desired. In order to avoid keyboard contention between getty and xdm, be sure to start xdm on a virtual terminal where getty is disabled. For example, if in Xservers you have: :0 local /usr/X11R7/bin/X :0 vt04 then in /etc/ttys you should have ttyE3 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" wsvt25 off secure (Please note that vt04 corresponds to ttyE3; in /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers, numbering starts at 1, but in /etc/ttys, numbering starts at 0.) If you are using xdm to start various modern desktop environments, such as Xfce or MATE, you will need to override its default permitted authorization mechanisms, by adding the following to /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config: DisplayManager*authName: MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 If you want to change the look of your xdm login screen, you can modify the xdm configuration file. For example, to change the background color you can add the following line to the Xsetup_0 file: xsetroot -solid SeaGreen 9.9. Using multiple or remote X servers This is intended as a simple example of how to use multiple X servers. For illustration purposes, we'll simply use Xnest(1), which creates a new X server :1 as a window on the existing server :0: $ Xnest :1 & It's then possible to run programs on the second server, or even a different window manager: $ DISPLAY=:1 uxterm & $ DISPLAY=:1 ctwm & Using X11 forwarding, programs can run on a remote machine while displaying on the local machine. This must typically be enabled in /etc/ssh/sshd_config: X11Forwarding yes Log in with ssh(1) and run X programs the normal way: $ ssh -X remote.machine.example.com $ uxterm & On a completely headless system (with no monitor), Xvfb(1) (X virtual framebuffer) can be used in a similar manner. The fully virtual screen of the X server can be exported over the network with x11/x11vnc: $ Xvfb :1 & $ DISPLAY=:1 ctwm & $ x11vnc -display :1 -localhost -passwdfile /path/to/password & Notice we use the -localhost option. In theory this stops remote connections, however, in practice we're using a SSH tunnel to forward the VNC port, adding an extra layer of security. To connect to the headless machine: $ ssh -L 5900:hostname:5900 hostname $ vncviewer localhost & 9.10. Further resources * An X Window System Tutorial is a video series that attempts to explain basic concepts of the X Window System, including the role of the window manager. * X Window System User's Guide for X11R3 and R4 (PDF, Web) by Valerie Quercia and Tim O'Reilley is a classic book describing some X features that is now available to read for free online. Chapter 10. Audio Table of Contents 10.1. Configuring the default audio device 10.2. Configuring the mixer and volume 10.2.1. Setting default mixer settings on boot 10.3. Pseudo audio devices 10.4. Recording and playback commands 10.4.1. audioplay(1) 10.4.2. audiorecord(1) 10.4.3. audioctl(1) 10.5. MIDI support 10.5.1. midirecord(1) 10.5.2. midiplay(1) 10.6. Intel HD Audio devices 10.6.1. Built-in and jacks: DACs/ADCs 10.6.2. HDMI/DisplayPort audio 10.1. Configuring the default audio device audiocfg(1) can be used to list, test and set default audio devices. All available audio devices can be listed with audiocfg list: $ audiocfg list 0: [*] audio0 @ hdafg0: Realtek ALC292 playback: 2ch, 48000Hz record: 2ch, 48000Hz (PR) slinear_le 16/16, 2ch, { 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 192000 } (PR) slinear_le 20/32, 2ch, { 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 192000 } (PR) slinear_le 24/32, 2ch, { 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 192000 } ( ) ac3 16/16, 2ch, { 32000, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 192000 } 1: [ ] audio1 @ uaudio0: USB audio playback: 2ch, 48000Hz record: 1ch, 48000Hz (P-) slinear_le 16/16, 2ch, { 48000, 44100 } (-R) slinear_le 16/16, 1ch, { 48000, 44100 } The asterisk next to the Realtek ALC292 device indicates it is currently the default device, so if any application writes or reads to /dev/audio it will play or record from it. It is also available as /dev/audio0, and for mixer commands, /dev/mixer0. The other device, USB audio, is a secondary device that has been plugged in. Since it isn't the default, it is only used if specifically selected in an application. It is available as /dev/audio1, and for mixer commands, /dev/ mixer1. The playback: and record: rows indicate the currently selected hardware audio format. Below this, the other supported formats are listed. Some devices set the playback and recording formats separately, while others set both at the same time. This is indicated by PR. audiocfg test index can be used to test playback, and plays a tone of 2 seconds for each channel of the index device: $ audiocfg test 0 0: [*] audio0 @ hdafg0: Realtek ALC292 testing channel 0... done testing channel 1... done If more than one audio device is available, audiocfg default index can be used to change the default one. This persists between reboots. Please note that unlike other audiocfg(1) commands, audiocfg default needs to be run as root. 10.2. Configuring the mixer and volume In NetBSD, mixerctl(1) is used to adjust audio mixing, e.g. volume for recording and playback, and the sources and sinks currently in use. Set the current playback volume: $ mixerctl -w outputs.master=50 List the available controls and settings: $ mixerctl -av outputs.master=255,255 volume inputs.dac=255,255 volume outputs.auto=255,255 volume delta=13 outputs.headphones=0,0 volume delta=13 outputs.hdmi=255,255 volume delta=13 outputs.select=headphones [ auto headphones hdmi ] Secondary devices can also be configured using mixerctl(1). For example, if you've just plugged in an USB audio device, it may have attached as /dev/audio1 and /dev/mixer1 - this is visible using audiocfg(1). You would therefore configure it with mixerctl -d /dev/mixer1. 10.2.1. Setting default mixer settings on boot Default mixer device settings can be applied on boot by setting mixerctl=YES in /etc/rc.conf, then providing arguments in /etc/mixerctl.conf. For example, this /etc/mixerctl.conf sets the playback volume and playback sink: outputs.master=120,120 outputs.select=headphones To automatically load and save the settings of mixer devices on boot and shutdown, you can specify each device to save individually in /etc/rc.conf: mixerctl=YES mixerctl_mixers="mixer0 mixer1" 10.3. Pseudo audio devices NetBSD's pad(4) device allows feeding back data from an application using a virtual audio device. It can be used to redirect playback elsewhere, or record an application's playback. /dev/padN devices produce a raw stream of audio in a fixed format when opened for reading. At the time of opening, they also create a /dev/audioN device for an application to use for output. You can observe the device creation happening with dmesg(8). The following example records the output of a game, games/jumpnbump, using the program multimedia/ffmpeg4 for encoding the data from the pad device to a file and writing it back to the real audio device simultaneously. Both are available from the NetBSD Packages Collection. $ ffmpeg4 -f s16le -ar 44100 -ac 2 -i /dev/pad0 \ -f wav output.wav -f oss /dev/audio $ SDL_PATH_DSP=/dev/audio1 jumpnbump 10.4. Recording and playback commands NetBSD comes with a number of commands that allow users to play and record audio from scripts or the command-line interface. 10.4.1. audioplay(1) With this command you can play audio files in simple formats like ULAW and WAVE. For more sophisticated needs you might want to install one of the many programs available in the package system which let you play audio files in different formats (e.g. MP3, etc.) 10.4.2. audiorecord(1) Allows recording audio from a microphone or other input to the same simple or raw formats that audioplay(1) supports. The following command records CD quality audio to a WAVE file from the default audio device. Recording will stop when the process is terminated: $ audiorecord -d /dev/audio -F wav -e linear -c 2 -P 16 -s 44100 recording.wav Play the recording back (its format is inferred from the WAVE headers): $ audioplay recording.wav 10.4.3. audioctl(1) audioctl(1) is used to manually set some variables regarding audio I/O, like the frequencies for playing and recording. This is useful when writing raw samples to /dev/sound without access to the full audio(4) API, e.g. from a shell script, but otherwise is not used during regular operation. 10.5. MIDI support NetBSD includes built-in MIDI support through the machine-independent midi(4) system. This includes support for USB MIDI devices. Access to MIDI devices is supported through raw access to the /dev/rmidiX devices, or through the sequencer device, /dev/music. Digital Audio Workstations and other software with support for NetBSD MIDI in the Packages Collection include audio/lmms and audio/fluidsynth. Several MIDI programs are also included with NetBSD: 10.5.1. midirecord(1) A program that allows recording MIDI events from a device to files in the Standard MIDI (SMF) format. It can also be used to test a device and verify it works as expected with the -D and -V options. 10.5.2. midiplay(1) A program that allows playing Standard MIDI and RMID files to the MIDI sequencer device. 10.6. Intel HD Audio devices Since the 2010s, most x86 machines have hardware compliant with the Intel HD Audio specification. These use NetBSD's hdaudio(4) driver and require some special consideration. 10.6.1. Built-in and jacks: DACs/ADCs For hdaudio(4) devices, the currently selected playback ports (or, e.g. internal speaker and headphone jack on a laptop) are controlled by selecting a DAC/ADC. The available DACs and ADCs can be seen in /var/run/dmesg.boot: hdafg0 at hdaudio1: Realtek ALC292 hdafg0: DAC00 2ch: Speaker [Built-In], HP Out [Jack] hdafg0: ADC01 2ch: Mic In [Jack] hdafg0: ADC02 2ch: Mic In [Built-In] Therefore, to use only the built-in mic for recording: $ mixerctl -w record.source=ADC02 Use all available sources: $ mixerctl -w record.source=ADC01,ADC02 Some laptops may need outputs.dacsel changed to only play audio from the headphone jack, others have hardware speaker mute and there's no need for this. 10.6.2. HDMI/DisplayPort audio Currently, HDMI/DisplayPort output with hdaudio(4) is not enabled in the default kernel because it interferes with default device selection. This can be changed by enabling these options in the kernel configuration, and rebuilding. See Chapter 34, Compiling the kernel for more information. options HDAUDIO_ENABLE_DISPLAYPORT options HDAUDIO_ENABLE_HDMI With other drivers (e.g. on ARM boards) this is not necessary. Chapter 11. Power management Table of Contents 11.1. Basic power management commands 11.1.1. Powering off or rebooting the system 11.1.2. Using ACPI sleep states (suspend and resume) 11.1.3. Suspending and resuming individual devices 11.1.4. Adjusting CPU frequency at runtime 11.1.5. Using IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) power saving mode 11.2. Sensors and monitoring 11.3. An introduction to powerd 11.3.1. Example: using powerd to suspend on lid close 11.3.2. Example: reducing CPU frequency when unplugged For power management, NetBSD supports sensor monitoring (including battery state, CPU temperature, and so on), CPU frequency adjustment, low-power mode for devices, hardware poweroff, and sleep (suspend-to-RAM) on some hardware. Power management on NetBSD primarily takes the form of acpi(4) (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) support, although sensors are also supported on many other types of non-ACPI hardware. 11.1. Basic power management commands 11.1.1. Powering off or rebooting the system A NetBSD system with ACPI support can be physically powered off by running the poweroff(8) and reboot(8) commands, however, it is usually best to use shutdown (8) so the system shuts down with appropriate warning and has time to properly stop any running applications and services. Shut the system down immediately: # shutdown -p now Reboot with a 10 minute warning to any users: # shutdown -r +10 11.1.2. Using ACPI sleep states (suspend and resume) An ACPI system is always in one of any "sleep states": S0 fully running S1 power on suspend (CPU and hard disks are off) S2 similar to S3, usually not implemented S3 suspend-to-RAM ("sleep", most of the system is inactive to save power, but can quickly be brought back up) S4 suspend-to-disk ("hibernate", not currently supported on NetBSD) S5 powered off The sleep state can be modified with sysctl(8), e.g. to suspend-to-RAM: # sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=3 The way the system wakes up is dependent on the hardware, and may include pressing the power button or lifting the lid. If supported, the system can resume from a suspended state much quicker than a full reboot. If you've tested this and verified it works as expected, you may wish to trigger it automatically through a powerd(8) event, such as closing the lid of a laptop. 11.1.3. Suspending and resuming individual devices If your machine does not support full ACPI suspend and resume, it may still be possible to suspend and resume individual devices to save power while they are inactive. This can be accomplished with drvctl(8). For example, /var/run/dmesg.boot reports our hardware has a SD card reader, rtsx0. rtsx0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0: Realtek Semiconductor RTS5227 PCI-E Card Reader (rev. 0x01) rtsx0: interrupting at msi4 vec 0 sdmmc0 at rtsx0 We can suspend it: # drvctl -S rtsx0 And we can also resume it: # drvctl -R rtsx0 If a specific device is failing to suspend or resume, this can also be used for debugging. 11.1.4. Adjusting CPU frequency at runtime Many modern machines allow the CPU frequency to be dynamically adjusted. A higher frequency provides better performance, but increased battery usage and generates more heat. On NetBSD, CPU frequency can be adjusted at runtime with sysctl(8). For example, this machine is currently running at 1400 MHz, but also supports a 600 MHz low-power mode: $ sysctl -a | grep freq machdep.cpu.frequency.target = 1400 machdep.cpu.frequency.current = 1400 machdep.cpu.frequency.min = 600 machdep.cpu.frequency.max = 1400 machdep.cpu.frequency.available = 600 1400 We can enter the low power mode by setting the target frequency: # sysctl -w machdep.cpu.frequency.target=600 Many modern hardware supports an "automatic adjustment" frequency, usually this will be a reported frequency that ends in 1. On systems without this functionality, sysutils/estd can be installed from pkgsrc to perform automatic adjustment depending on load in software, although it will be less efficient than hardware scaling. 11.1.5. Using IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) power saving mode Some IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) networking devices support a low power mode, which can be enabled with ifconfig(8): # ifconfig iwm0 powersave You may notice an increase in reported latency from ping(8) and a decrease in performance. However, it may improve your device's battery life, as the radios in such devices can consume a lot of energy. It can be disabled again with ifconfig: # ifconfig iwm0 -powersave 11.2. Sensors and monitoring The primary command-line frontend to NetBSD's sensor monitoring framework is envstat(8). Here is a typical example of envstat output: $ envstat Current CritMax WarnMax WarnMin CritMin Unit [acpiacad0] connected: FALSE [acpibat0] present: TRUE design voltage: 11.100 V voltage: 12.270 V design cap: 23.200 Wh last full cap: 16.940 Wh charge: 16.770 5.000% 1.181% Wh (99.00%) charge rate: N/A discharge rate: N/A charging: FALSE charge state: NORMAL [acpitz0] temperature: 48.000 128.000 acpiacad0 is the machine's AC adapter. It is not currently connected. acpibat0 is the machine's battery, currently 99% full. At 5%, a warning will be printed to the console and an event sent to powerd(8). At 1%, the system will shut down to prevent data loss from loss of power. A CPU temperature sensor is also detected, acpitz0. It indicates that the CPU's current temperature is 48 degrees Celsius, and the critical temperature is 128 degrees Celsius. If the critical temperature is reached, the system will shut down to prevent damage to hardware. powerd(8) can be notified of changes in temperature. 11.3. An introduction to powerd powerd(8) is a daemon that allows the system to respond to power management events, such as the AC adapter being unplugged, battery state changing, a laptop's lid being closed, or a "sleep" button being pressed. As with other services, powerd can be enabled by editing /etc/rc.conf: powerd=YES And started with service(8): # service powerd start powerd works by executing a named sh(1) script from the directory /etc/powerd/ scripts whenever a power event occurs. We can use commands we learned in previous sections of this chapter to our advantage in the scripts. 11.3.1. Example: using powerd to suspend on lid close Example 11.1. /etc/powerd/scripts/lid_switch #!/bin/sh - # # Generic script for lid switch events. # # Arguments passed by powerd(8): # # device event case "${2}" in pressed) # Lock the X11 display to prevent tampering DISPLAY=:0 /usr/pkg/bin/xlock -mode blank & # Wait for 1 second sleep 1 # Suspend /sbin/sysctl -w hw.acpi.sleep.state=3 exit 0 ;; released) exit 0 ;; *) logger -p warning "${0}: unsupported event ${2} on device ${1}" >&1 exit 1 esac 11.3.2. Example: reducing CPU frequency when unplugged Example 11.2. /etc/powerd/scripts/acadapter #!/bin/sh - # # Generic script for acadapter events. # # Arguments passed by powerd(8): # # device event case "${2}" in pressed) logger -p info "${0}: Full performance mode" >&1 # Disable power saving mode on all network interfaces. for intf in $(/sbin/ifconfig -l); do /sbin/ifconfig $intf -powersave >/dev/null 2>&1 done # Increase CPU frequency /sbin/sysctl -w machdep.cpu.frequency.target=2300 exit 0 ;; released) logger -p info "${0}: Power saving mode" >&1 # Enable power saving mode on all network interfaces. for intf in $(/sbin/ifconfig -l); do /sbin/ifconfig $intf powersave >/dev/null 2>&1 done # Reduce CPU frequency /sbin/sysctl -w machdep.cpu.frequency.target=1400 exit 0 ;; *) logger -p warning "${0}: unsupported event ${2} on device ${1}" >&1 exit 1 ;; esac Chapter 12. Printing Table of Contents 12.1. Enabling the printer daemon 12.2. Configuring /etc/printcap 12.3. Configuring Ghostscript 12.4. Printer management commands 12.5. Remote printing This chapter describes a simple configuration for printing, using an HP Deskjet 690C printer connected to the first parallel port and the lpd printing system that comes with NetBSD. First, the system will be configured to print text documents, and next the configuration will be extended to print PostScript documents using the Ghostscript program (print/ghostscript). Please note that there are other, alternative printing systems available from the packages collection, like LPRng (print/LPRng) and the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) (print/cups) which are not covered here. 12.1. Enabling the printer daemon After installation it is not yet possible to print, because the lpd printer spooler daemon is not enabled. To enable lpd, one line in the /etc/rc.conf file must be changed from: lpd=NO to lpd=YES The change will come into effect at the next boot, but the daemon can be started manually now: # service lpd start To check if lpd is active, type the following command: # service lpd status If you don't see an entry for lpd in the output of the previous command, the daemon is not active. The lpd system is configured via /etc/printcap. Before configuring /etc/ printcap it is a good idea to make a printer test, to check if the physical connection between your computer and the printer is working. The test sends out some data directly to the printer device. Assuming you use a printer connected to the parallel port, this is /dev/lpt0; if you use an USB printer try /dev/ ulpt0. Please check the manpages of these devices (lpt(4), ulpt(4)) for more information! In our example we have a printer attached to the parallel port, so we run this: # lptest 70 5 > /dev/lpt0 To see what the output should look like, try the same command without redirecting the output to the printer: # lptest 70 5 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdef "#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefg #$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefgh $%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghi %&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghij A frequent problem is that the output on the printer is not correctly aligned in columns but has a "staircase" configuration. This usually means that the printer is configured to begin a new line at the left margin after receiving both a (carriage return, ASCII 13) character and a (line feed, ASCII 10) character. NetBSD only sends a character. You can fix this problem in two ways: * by changing the configuration of the printer * by using a simple printer filter (described later) Note In the previous example the lpd spooler is not involved because the program output is sent directly to the printer device (/dev/lpt0) and is not spooled. 12.2. Configuring /etc/printcap This section explains how to configure the example printer to print text documents. The printer must have an entry in the /etc/printcap file; the entry contains the printer id (the name of the printer) and the printer description. The lp id is the default used by many programs. Here is an example entry: Example 12.1. /etc/printcap lp|local printer|HP DeskJet 690C:\ :lp=/dev/lpa0:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\ :sh:pl#66:pw#80:if=/usr/local/libexec/lpfilter: The file format and options are described in detail in the printcap(5) manpage. Please note that an input filter has been specified (with the if option) which will take care of eliminating the staircase problem: if=/usr/local/libexec/lpfilter Printer driver and HP printers Example 12.1, "/etc/printcap" uses the lpa0 device (polled driver) for the printer, instead of the lpd0 (interrupt driven driver). Using interrupts there is a communication problem with some printers, and the HP Deskjet 690C is one of them: printing is very slow and one PostScript page can take hours. The problem is solved using the lpa driver. It is also possible to compile a custom kernel where lpt is polled. The printcap entry for the printer also specifies a spool directory, which must be created; this directory will be used by the lpd daemon to accumulate the data to be printed: # cd /var/spool/lpd # mkdir lp # chown daemon:daemon lp # chmod 770 lp The only missing part is the lpfilter input filter, which must be written. The only task performed by this filter is to configure the printer for the elimination of the staircase problem before sending the text to be printed. The printer used in this example requires the following initialization string: " &k2G". Example 12.2. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter #!/bin/sh # Treat LF as CR+LF printf "\033&k2G" && cat && exit 0 exit 2 After saving this script into the name you used in /etc/printcap, you need to make sure it's executable: # chmod 755 /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter* Note There is another filter that can be used: if=/usr/libexec/lpr/lpf: This filter is much more complex than the one presented before. It is written to process the output of nroff and handles underline and overprinting, expands tab characters and converts LF to CR + LF. The source to this filter program can be found in /usr/src/usr.sbin/lpr/filters/lpf.c. After everything is in place now, the lptest command can be run again now, this time using the lpr command, which will first send the data to the lpd spooler, then runs the filter and sends the data off to the printer: # lptest 70 5 | lpr -h The lpr program prints text using the spooler to send data to the printer; the -h option turns off the printing of a banner page (not really necessary, because of the sh option in /etc/printcap). Users more familiar with the System V printing system can also use the lp(1) command that comes as an alternative to lpr(1). 12.3. Configuring Ghostscript Now that basic printing works, the functionality for printing PostScript files can be added. The simple printer used in this example does not support native printing of PostScript files; a program must be used which is capable of converting a PostScript document in a sequence of commands that the printer understands. The Ghostscript program, which can be found in packages collection, can be used to this purpose. This section explains how to configure lpd to use Ghostscript to print PostScript files on the HP Deskjet 690C. A second id for the printer will be created in /etc/printcap: this new id will use a different input filter, which will call Ghostscript to perform the actual print of the PostScript document. Therefore, text documents will be printed on the lp printer and PostScript documents on the ps printer: both entries use the same physical printer but have different printing filters. The same result can be achieved using different configurations. For example, a single entry with only one filter could be used. For this, the filter should be able to automatically determine the format of the document being printed, and use the appropriate printing program. This approach is simpler but leads to a more complex filter; if you like it you should consider installing the magicfilter program from the packages collection: it does this and many other things automatically. For our approach, the new /etc/printcap file looks like this: Example 12.3. /etc/printcap lp|local printer|HP DeskJet 690C:\ :lp=/dev/lpa0:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\ :sh:pl#66:pw#80:if=/usr/local/libexec/lpfilter: ps|Ghostscript driver:\ :lp=/dev/lpa0:sd=/var/spool/lpd/ps:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\ :mx#0:sh:if=/usr/local/libexec/lpfilter-ps: Option mx#0 is very important for printing PostScript files because it eliminates size restrictions on the input file; PostScript documents tend to be very big. The if option points to the new filter. There is also a new spool directory. The next steps are the creation of the new spool directory and of the filter program. The procedure for the spool directory is the same as above: # cd /var/spool/lpd # mkdir ps # chown daemon:daemon ps # chmod 770 ps The filter program for PostScript output is more complex than the text base one: the file to be printed is fed to the interpreter which converts it into a sequence of commands in the printer's control language, and then sends that off to the printer. We have achieved to transform a cheap color printer in a device suitable for PostScript output, by virtue of the NetBSD operating system and some powerful freeware packages. The options used to configure Ghostscript are described in the Ghostscript documentation: cdj550 is the device used to drive the HP printer. Example 12.4. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter-ps #!/bin/sh # Treat LF as CR+LF printf "\033&k2G" || exit 2 # Print the postscript file /usr/pkg/bin/gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dQUIET -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=cdj550 \ -sOutputFile=- -sPAPERSIZE=a4 - && exit 0 exit 2 To summarize: two different printer names have been created on the system, which point to the same physical printer but use different options, different filters and different spool directories. Text files and PostScript files can be printed. To print PostScript files the Ghostscript package must be installed on the system. 12.4. Printer management commands This section lists some useful BSD commands for printer and print jobs administration. Besides the already mentioned lpr and lpd commands, we have: lpq examine the printer job queue. lprm delete jobs from the printer's queue. lpc check the printing system, enable/disable printers and printer features. 12.5. Remote printing It is possible to configure the printing system in order to print on a printer connected to a remote host. Let's say that, for example, you work on the wotan host and you want to print on the printer connected to the loge host. The /etc/ printcap file of loge is the one of Example 12.3, "/etc/printcap". From wotan it will be possible to print Postscript files using Ghostscript on loge. The first step is to accept the print jobs submitted from the wotan host to the loge host. To accomplish this, a line with the wotan host name must be added to the /etc/hosts.lpd file on loge: # hostname loge # cat /etc/hosts.lpd wotan The format of this file is very simple: each line contains the name of a host which is permitted to print on the local system. By default the lpd daemon only listens on UNIX domain sockets for local connections, it won't accept any network connects. To ensure the daemon also accepts incoming network traffic, the following will need to be added to /etc/rc.conf: lpd_flags="" Next, the /etc/printcap file on wotan must be configured in order to send print jobs to loge. For example: lp|line printer on loge:\ :lp=:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:lf=/var/log/lp-errs:\ :rm=loge:rp=lp ps|Ghostscript driver on loge:\ :lp=:sd=/var/spool/lpd/ps:lf=/var/log/lp-errs:\ :mx#0:\ :rm=loge:rp=ps There are four main differences between this configuration and the one of Example 12.3, "/etc/printcap". 1. The definition of "lp" is empty. 2. The "rm" (remote machine) entry defines the name of the host to which the printer is connected. 3. The "rp" (remote printer) entry defines the name of the printer connected to the remote host. 4. It is not necessary to specify input filters because the definitions on the loge host will be used. 5. The spool directories must still be created locally on wotan: # cd /var/spool/lpd # mkdir lp # chown daemon:daemon lp # chmod 770 lp # mkdir ps # chown daemon:daemon ps # chmod 770 ps Now the print jobs for the "lp" and "ps" queues on wotan will be sent automatically to the printer connected to loge. Chapter 13. Using removable media Table of Contents 13.1. Initializing and using USB flash drives 13.2. Initializing and using floppy disks 13.3. How to use a ZIP disk 13.4. Reading data CDs with NetBSD 13.5. Reading multi-session CDs with NetBSD 13.6. Allowing normal users to access CDs 13.7. Mounting an ISO image 13.8. Using video CDs with NetBSD 13.9. Using audio CDs with NetBSD 13.10. Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD 13.11. Using a CD-R writer with data CDs 13.12. Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs 13.13. Creating an audio CD from MP3s 13.14. Copying an audio CD 13.15. Copying a data CD with two drives 13.16. Using CD-RW rewritables 13.17. DVD support 13.18. Creating ISO images from a CD 13.19. Getting volume information from CDs and ISO images 13.1. Initializing and using USB flash drives USB flash drives can be used to share data among machines. After attaching it we can see via dmesg(8) that it is recognised as sd0: # dmesg [...] sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: disk removable sd0: fabricating a geometry sd0: 14755 MB, 14755 cyl, 64 head, 32 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 30218842 sectors sd0: fabricating a geometry [...] Warning Please note that the following commands will erase all the previous contents on the USB flash drive! To initialize it we can write zeros in the first 1MB of the USB flash drive: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0d bs=1m count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 1048576 bytes transferred in 0.118 secs (8886237 bytes/sec) Via fdisk(8) we can create a partition table. MS-DOS partition and filesystem is supported by most operating systems and devices that accept an USB disk, so let's update the partition table (-u), creating an MS-DOS partition and set the new partition as active (-a): # fdisk -au sd0 fdisk: primary partition table invalid, no magic in sector 0 fdisk: Cannot determine the number of heads Disk: /dev/rsd0d NetBSD disklabel disk geometry: cylinders: 14755, heads: 64, sectors/track: 32 (2048 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 30218842, bytes/sector: 512 BIOS disk geometry: cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 30218842 Partitions aligned to 16065 sector boundaries, offset 63 Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks? [n] Partition table: 0: 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. No active partition. Drive serial number: 0 (0x00000000) Which partition do you want to change?: [none] 0 The data for partition 0 is: sysid: [0..255 default: 169] 11 start: [0..1881cyl default: 63, 0cyl, 0MB] size: [0..1881cyl default: 30218779, 1881cyl, 14755MB] bootmenu: [] (space to clear) Partition table: 0: Primary DOS with 32 bit FAT (sysid 11) start 63, size 30218779 (14755 MB, Cyls 0-1881/9/10) PBR is not bootable: All bytes are identical (0x00) 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. No active partition. Drive serial number: 0 (0x00000000) Which partition do you want to change?: [none] Do you want to change the active partition? [n] y Choosing 4 will make no partition active. active partition: [0..4 default: 4] 0 Are you happy with this choice? [n] y We haven't written the MBR back to disk yet. This is your last chance. Partition table: 0: Primary DOS with 32 bit FAT (sysid 11) start 63, size 30218779 (14755 MB, Cyls 0-1881/9/10), Active PBR is not bootable: All bytes are identical (0x00) 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. First active partition: 0 Drive serial number: 0 (0x00000000) Should we write new partition table? [n] y Then we can see via disklabel(8): # disklabel sd0 # /dev/rsd0d: type: SCSI disk: DataTraveler 3.0 label: fictitious flags: removable bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 32 tracks/cylinder: 64 sectors/cylinder: 2048 cylinders: 14755 total sectors: 30218842 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 5 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] d: 30218842 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 14755*) e: 30218779 63 MSDOS # (Cyl. 0*- 14755*) disklabel: boot block size 0 disklabel: super block size 0 that an sd0e MSDOS partition is present. We can finally create an MS-DOS filesystem via newfs_msdos(8): # newfs_msdos /dev/rsd0e /dev/rsd0e: 30189264 sectors in 1886829 FAT32 clusters (8192 bytes/cluster) MBR type: 11 bps=512 spc=16 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf0 spt=32 hds=64 hid=0 bsec=30218779 bspf=14741 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=2 It is ready to be used and mounted via mount_msdos(8). 13.2. Initializing and using floppy disks PC-style floppy disks work mostly like other disk devices like hard disks, except that you need to low-level format them first. To use an common 1440 KB floppy in the first floppy drive, first (as root) format it: # fdformat -f /dev/rfd0a Then create a single partition on the disk using disklabel(8): # disklabel -rw /dev/rfd0a floppy3 Creating a small filesystem optimized for space: # newfs -m 0 -o space -i 16384 -c 80 /dev/rfd0a Now the floppy disk can be mounted like any other disk. Or if you already have a floppy disk with an MS-DOS filesystem on it that you just want to access from NetBSD, you can just do something like this: # mount -t msdos /dev/fd0a /mnt However, rather than using floppies like normal (bigger) disks, it is often more convenient to bypass the filesystem altogether and just splat an archive of files directly to the raw device. E.g.: # tar cvfz /dev/rfd0a file1 file2 ... A variation of this can also be done with MS-DOS floppies using the sysutils/ mtools package which has the benefit of not going through the kernel buffer cache and thus not being exposed to the danger of the floppy being removed while a filesystem is mounted on it. 13.3. How to use a ZIP disk 1. See if your system has a ZIP drive: # dmesg | grep -i zip sd0 at atapibus0 drive 1: type 0 direct removable Seems it has one, and it's recognized as sd0, just like any SCSI disk. The fact that the ZIP here is an ATAPI one doesn't matter - a SCSI ZIP will show up here, too. The ZIP is marked as "removable", which means you can eject it with: # eject sd0 2. Insert ZIP disk 3. Check out what partitions are on the ZIP: # disklabel sd0 # /dev/rsd0d: type: ATAPI ... 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] d: 196608 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 95) h: 196576 32 MSDOS # (Cyl. 0*- 95) disklabel: boot block size 0 disklabel: super block size 0 Partition d is the whole disk, as usual on i386. Partition h is what you want, and you can see it's a msdos filesystem even. Hence, use /dev/sd0h to access the zip's partition. 4. Mount it: # mount -t msdos /dev/sd0h /mnt 5. Access your files: # ls -la /mnt total 40809 drwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 16384 Dec 31 1979 . drwxr-xr-x 28 root wheel 1024 Aug 2 22:06 .. -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1474560 Feb 23 1999 boot1.fs -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1474560 Feb 23 1999 boot2.fs -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 548864 Feb 23 1999 boot3.fs -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38271173 Feb 23 1999 netbsd19990223.tar.gz 6. Unmount the ZIP: # umount /mnt # 7. Eject the ZIP: # eject sd0 # 13.4. Reading data CDs with NetBSD Data CDs can contain anything from programs, sound files (MP3, wav), movies (MP3, QuickTime) to source code, text files, etc. Before accessing these files, a CD must be mounted on a directory, much like hard disks are. Just as hard disks can use different filesystems (ffs, lfs, ext2fs, ...), CDs have their own filesystem, "cd9660". The NetBSD cd9660 filesystem can handle filesystems without and with Rockridge and Joliet extensions. CD devices are named /dev/cd0a for both SCSI and IDE (ATAPI). With this information, we can start: 1. See if your system has some CD drive: # dmesg | grep 'cd[0-9]*:' cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: type 5 cdrom removable cd0: 32-bit data port cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 0 We have one drive here, "cd0". It is an IDE/ATAPI drive, as it is found on atapibus0. Of course the drive (rather, its medium) is removable, i.e., you can eject it. See below. 2. Insert a CD 3. Mount the CD manually: # mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0a /mnt # This command shouldn't print anything. It instructs the system to mount the CD found on /dev/cd0a on /mnt, using the "cd9660" filesystem. The mountpoint "/mnt" must be an existing directory. 4. Check the contents of the CD: # ls /mnt INSTALL.html INSTALL.ps TRANS.TBL boot.catalog INSTALL.more INSTALL.txt binary installation # Everything looks fine! This is a NetBSD CD, of course. :) 5. Unmount the CD: # umount /mnt # If the CD is still accessed (e.g. some other shell's still "cd"'d into it), this will not work. If you shut down the system, the CD will be unmounted automatically for you, there's nothing to worry about there. 6. Making an entry in /etc/fstab: If you don't want to type the full "mount" command each time, you can put most of the values into a line in /etc/fstab: # Device mountpoint filesystem mount options /dev/cd0a /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto Make sure that the mountpoint, /cdrom in our example, exists: # mkdir /cdrom # Now you can mount the cd with the following command: # mount /cdrom # Access and unmount as before. The CD is not mounted at boot time due to the "noauto" mount option - this is useful as you'll probably not have a CD in the drive all the time. See mount(8) and mount_cd9660(8) for some other useful options. 7. Eject the CD: # eject cd0 # If the CD is still mounted, it will be unmounted if possible, before being ejected. 13.5. Reading multi-session CDs with NetBSD Use mscdlabel(8) to add all sessions to the CDs disklabel, and then use the appropriate device node to mount the session you want. You might have to create the corresponding device nodes in /dev manually. For example: # mscdlabel cd1 track (ctl=4) at sector 142312 adding as 'a' track (ctl=4) at sector 0 adding as 'b' # ls -l /dev/cd1b ls: /dev/cd1b: No such file or directory # cd /dev # ls -l cd1* brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 8 Mar 18 21:55 cd1a brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 11 Mar 18 21:55 cd1d # mknod cd1b b 6 9 to create /dev/cd1b. Make sure you fix the permissions of any new device nodes you create: # ls -l cd1* brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 8 Mar 18 21:55 cd1a brw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6, 9 Mar 18 22:23 cd1b brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 11 Mar 18 21:55 cd1d # chgrp operator cd1b # chmod 640 cd1b # ls -l cd1* brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 8 Mar 18 21:55 cd1a brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 9 Mar 18 22:24 cd1b brw-r----- 1 root operator 6, 11 Mar 18 21:55 cd1d Now you should be able to mount it. # mount /dev/cd1b /mnt 13.6. Allowing normal users to access CDs By default, NetBSD only allows "root" to mount a filesystem. If you want any user to be able to do this, perform the following steps: * Give groups and other the access rights to the device. # chmod go+rw /dev/cd0a * Ask NetBSD to let users mounting filesystems. # sysctl -w vfs.generic.usermount=1 Note that this works for any filesystem and device, not only for CDs with a ISO 9660 filesystem. To perform the mount operation after these commands, the user must own the mount point. So, for example: $ cd $HOME $ mkdir cdrom $ mount -t cd9660 -o nodev,nosuid /dev/cd0a `pwd`/cdrom Please also see mount(8) and as an alternative the auto mount daemon amd(8), for which example config files can be found in /usr/share/examples/amd. 13.7. Mounting an ISO image Sometimes, it is interesting to mount an ISO9660 image file before you burn the CD; this way, you can examine its contents or even copy files to the outside. If you are a Linux user, you should know that this is done with the special loop filesystem. NetBSD does it another way, using the vnode pseudo-disk. We will illustrate how to do this with an example. Suppose you have an ISO image in your home directory, called "mycd.iso": 1. Start by setting up a new vnode, "pointing" to the ISO file: # vnconfig -c vnd0 ~/mycd.iso 2. Now, mount the vnode: # mount -t cd9660 /dev/vnd0a /mnt 3. Yeah, image contents appear under /mnt! Go to that directory and explore the image. 4. When you are happy, you have to umount the image: # umount /mnt 5. And at last, deconfigure the vnode: # vnconfig -u vnd0 Note that these steps can also be used for any kind of file that contains a filesystem, not just ISO images. See the vnd(4) and vnconfig(8) man pages for more information. 13.8. Using video CDs with NetBSD To play MPEG Video streams as many DVD players can play them under NetBSD, mount the CD as you would do with any normal (data) CD (see Section 13.4, "Reading data CDs with NetBSD"), then use the multimedia/xine-ui, multimedia/ mplayer or multimedia/gmplayer package to play the mpeg files stored on the CD. 13.9. Using audio CDs with NetBSD There are two ways to handle audio CDs: 1. Tell the CD drive to play to the headphone or to a soundcard, to which CDROMs are usually connected internally. Use programs like cdplay(1), audio /xmcd, "kscd" from the multimedia/kdemultimedia3 package, mixer programs like mixerctl(1), audio/xmix, audio/xmmix, the Curses based audio/cam, or kmix, which is part of multimedia/kdemultimedia3. This usually works well on both SCSI and IDE (ATAPI) CDROMs, CDRW and DVD drives. 2. To read ("rip") audio tracks in binary form without going through digital-> analog conversion and back. There are several programs available to do this: + For most ATAPI, SCSI and several proprietary CDROM drives, the audio/ cdparanoia package can be used. With cdparanoia the data can be saved to a file or directed to standard output in WAV, AIFF, AIFF-C or raw format. Currently the -g option is required by the NetBSD version of cdparanoia. A hypothetical example of how to save track 2 as a WAV file is as follows: $ cdparanoia -g /dev/rcd0d 2 track-02.wav If you want to grab all files from a CD, cdparanoia's batch mode is useful: $ cdparanoia -g /dev/rcd0d -B + For ATAPI or SCSI CD-ROMs the audio/cdd package can be used. To extract track 2 with cdd, type: # cdd -t 2 `pwd` This will put a file called track-02.cda in the current directory. + For SCSI CD-ROMS the audio/tosha package can be used. To extract track 2 with tosha, you should be able to type: # tosha -d CD-ROM-device -t 2 -o track-02.cda The data can then be post-processed e.g. by encoding it into MP3 streams (see Section 13.10, "Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD") or by writing them to CD-Rs (see Section 13.12, "Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs"). + To streamline the process, from obtaining audio to populating the metadata for a track to normalising audio and such, the audio/abcde package can be used. # abcde -d /dev/rcd0d -o mp3 -p -P This will encode the disc track-by-track padding the tracknumbers with a leading 0 and using UNIX pipes to read+encode without leaving the WAV files 13.10. Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD The basic steps in creating an MPEG layer 3 (MP3) file from an audio CD (using software from the NetBSD packages collection) are: 1. Extract (rip) the audio data of the CD as shown in Section 13.9, "Using audio CDs with NetBSD". 2. Convert the CD audio format file to WAV format. You only need to perform this job if your ripping program (e.g. tosha, cdd) didn't already do the job for you! + Using the audio/sox package, type: $ sox -s -w -c 2 -r 44100 -t cdr track-02.cda track-02.wav This will convert track-02.cda in raw CD format to track-02.wav in WAV format, using signed 16-bit words with 2 channels at a sampling rate of 44100kHz. 3. Encode the WAV file into MP3 format. + Using the audio/bladeenc package, type: $ bladeenc -128 -QUIT track-02.wav This will encode track-02.wav into track-02.mp3 in MP3 format, using a bit rate if 128kBit/sec. The documentation for bladeenc describes bit-rates in more detail. + Using the audio/lame package, type: $ lame -p -o -v -V 5 -h track-02.wav track-02.mp3 You may wish to use a lower quality, depending on your taste and hardware. The resultant MP3 file can be played with any of the audio/gqmpeg, audio/maplay , audio/mpg123 or audio/splay packages. 13.11. Using a CD-R writer with data CDs The process of writing a CD consists of two steps: First, a "image" of the data must be generated, which can then be written to CD-R in a second step. 1. Reading a pre-existing ISO image # dd if=/dev/rcd0a of=filename.iso bs=2k # Alternatively, you can create a new ISO image yourself: 2. Generating the ISO image Put all the data you want to put on CD into one directory. Next you need to generate a disk-like ISO image of your data. The image stores the data in the same form as they're later put on CD, using the ISO 9660 format. The basic ISO9660 format only understands 8+3 filenames (max. eight letters for filename, plus three more for an extension). As this is not practical for Unix filenames, a so-called "Rockridge Extension" needs to be employed to get longer filenames. (A different set of such extension exists in the Microsoft world, to get their long filenames right; that's what's known as Joliet filesystem). The ISO image is created using the mkisofs command, which is part of the sysutils/cdrtools package. Example: if you have your data in /usr/tmp/data, you can generate a ISO image file in /usr/tmp/data.iso with the following command: $ cd /usr/tmp $ mkisofs -o data.iso -r data Using NETBS000.GZ;1 for data/binary/kernel/netbsd.INSTALL.gz (netbsd.INSTALL_TINY.gz) Using NETBS001.GZ;1 for data/binary/kernel/netbsd.GENERIC.gz (netbsd.GENERIC_TINY.gz) 5.92% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:28:11 2000 11.83% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:28:03 2000 17.74% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:28:00 2000 23.64% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:28:03 2000 ... 88.64% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:27:55 2000 94.53% done, estimate finish Wed Sep 13 21:27:55 2000 Total translation table size: 0 Total rockridge attributes bytes: 5395 Total directory bytes: 16384 Path table size(bytes): 110 Max brk space used 153c4 84625 extents written (165 Mb) $ Please see the mkisofs(8) man page for other options like noting publisher and preparer. The Bootable CD ROM How-To explains how to generate a bootable CD. 3. Writing the ISO image to CD-R When you have the ISO image file, you just need to write it on a CD. This is done with the "cdrecord" command from the sysutils/cdrtools package. Insert a blank CD-R, and off we go: # cdrecord -v dev=/dev/rcd0d data.iso ... # After starting the command, 'cdrecord' shows you a lot of information about your drive, the disk and the image you're about to write. It then does a 10 seconds countdown, which is your last chance to stop things - type ^C if you want to abort. If you don't abort, the process will write the whole image to the CD and return with a shell prompt. Note that cdrecord(8) works on both SCSI and IDE (ATAPI) drives. 4. Test Mount the just-written CD and test it as you would do with any "normal" CD, see Section 13.4, "Reading data CDs with NetBSD". 13.12. Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs If you want to make a backup copy of one of your audio CDs, you can do so by extracting ("ripping") the audio tracks from the CD, and then writing them back to a blank CD. Of course this also works fine if you only extract single tracks from various CDs, creating your very own mix CD! The steps involved are: 1. Extract ("rip") the audio tracks as described as in Section 13.9, "Using audio CDs with NetBSD" to get a couple of .wav files. 2. Write the .wav files using cdrecord command from the sysutils/cdrtools package: # cdrecord -v dev=/dev/rcd0d -audio -pad *.wav 13.13. Creating an audio CD from MP3s If you have converted all your audio CDs to MP3 and now want to make a mixed CD for your (e.g.) your car, you can do so by first converting the .mp3 files back to .wav format, then write them as a normal audio CD. The steps involved here are: 1. Create .wav files from your .mp3 files: $ mpg123 -w foo.wav foo.mp3 Do this for all of the MP3 files that you want to have on your audio CD. The .wav filenames you use don't matter. 2. Write the .wav files to CD as described under Section 13.12, "Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs". 13.14. Copying an audio CD To copy an audio CD while not introducing any pauses as mandated by the CDDA standard, you can use cdrdao for that: # cdrdao read-cd --device /dev/rcd0d data.toc # cdrdao write --device /dev/rcd1d data.toc 13.15. Copying a data CD with two drives If you have both a CD-R and a CD-ROM drive in your machine, you can copy a data CD with the following command: # cdrecord dev=/dev/rcd1d /dev/rcd0d Here the CD-ROM (cd0) contains the CD you want to copy, and the CD-R (cd1) contains the blank disk. Note that this only works with computer disks that contain some sort of data, it does not work with audio CDs! In practice you'll also want to add something like "speed=8" to make things a bit faster. 13.16. Using CD-RW rewritables You can treat a CD-RW drive like a CD-R drive (see Section 13.11, "Using a CD-R writer with data CDs") in NetBSD, creating images with mkisofs(8) and writing them on a CD-RW medium with cdrecord(8). If you want to blank a CD-RW, you can do this with cdrecord's "blank" option: # cdrecord dev=/dev/rcd0d blank=fast There are several other ways to blank the CD-RW, call cdrecord(8) with "blank= help" for a list. See the cdrecord(8) man page for more information. 13.17. DVD support Currently, NetBSD supports ISO 9660 and UDF DVD media. Information about mounting ISO 9660 and UDF filesystems can be found in the mount_cd9660(8) and mount_udf(8) manual pages respectively. DVDs, DivX and many avi files be played with multimedia/ogle or multimedia/gmplayer. For some hints on creating DVDs, see this postings about growisofs and this article about recording CDs and DVDs with NetBSD. 13.18. Creating ISO images from a CD To create an ISO image and save the checksum do this: # readcd dev=/dev/cd0d f=/tmp/cd.iso Here is an alternative using dd(1): # dd if=/dev/cd0d of=/tmp/cd.iso bs=2048 If the CD has errors you can recover the rest with this: # dd if=/dev/cd0d of=/tmp/cd.iso bs=2048 conv=noerror To create an ISO image from a mounted data CD first, mount the CD disk by: # mount -t cd9660 -r /dev/cd0d /mnt/cdrom Second, get the image: # mkhybrid -v -l -J -R -o /tmp/my_cd.iso /mnt/cdrom/ 13.19. Getting volume information from CDs and ISO images You can read the volume data from an unmounted CD with this command: # file -s /dev/cd0d You can read the volume data from an ISO image with this command: # isoinfo -d -i /tmp/my_cd.iso You can get the unique disk number from an unmounted CD with this: # cd-discid /dev/cd0d You can read the table of contents of an unmounted CD with this command: # cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cd0d -toc Chapter 14. The cryptographic device driver (CGD) Table of Contents 14.1. Overview 14.1.1. Why use disk encryption? 14.1.2. Logical Disk Drivers 14.1.3. Availability 14.2. Components of the Crypto-Graphic Disk system 14.2.1. Kernel driver pseudo-device 14.2.2. Ciphers 14.2.3. Obsolete Ciphers 14.2.4. Verification Methods 14.3. Example: encrypting your disk 14.3.1. Preparing the disk 14.3.2. Scrubbing the disk 14.3.3. Creating the cgd 14.3.4. Modifying configuration files 14.3.5. Restoring data 14.4. Example: encrypted CDs/DVDs 14.4.1. Creating an encrypted CD/DVD 14.4.2. Using an encrypted CD/DVD 14.5. Example: encrypted iSCSI devices 14.5.1. Creating an encrypted iSCSI device 14.5.2. Device Initialisation 14.5.3. Unmounting the Encrypted Device 14.5.4. Normal Usage 14.6. Suggestions and Warnings 14.6.1. Using a random-key cgd for swap 14.6.2. Warnings 14.7. Further Reading The cgd driver provides functionality which allows you to use disks or partitions for encrypted storage. After providing the appropriate key, the encrypted partition is accessible using cgd pseudo-devices. 14.1. Overview People often store sensitive information on their hard disks and are concerned about this information falling into the wrong hands. This is particularly relevant to users of laptops and other portable devices, or portable media, which might be stolen or accidentally misplaced. 14.1.1. Why use disk encryption? File-oriented encryption tools like GnuPG are great for encrypting individual files, which can then be sent across untrusted networks as well as stored encrypted on disk. But sometimes they can be inconvenient, because the file must be decrypted each time it is to be used; this is especially cumbersome when you have a large collection of files to protect. Any time a security tool is cumbersome to use, there's a chance you'll forget to use it properly, leaving the files unprotected for the sake of convenience. Worse, readable copies of the encrypted contents might still exist on the hard disk. Even if you overwrite these files (using rm -P) before unlinking them, your application software might make temporary copies you don't know about, or have been paged to swapspace--and even your hard disk might have silently remapped failing sectors with data still in them. The solution is to simply never write the information unencrypted to the hard disk. Rather than taking a file-oriented approach to encryption, consider a block-oriented approach--a virtual hard disk, that looks just like a normal hard disk with normal filesystems, but which encrypts and decrypts each block on the way to and from the real disk. 14.1.2. Logical Disk Drivers The cgd device looks and behaves to the rest of the operating system like any other disk driver. Rather than driving real hardware directly, it provides a logical function layered on top of another block device. It has a special configuration program, cgdconfig, to create and configure a cgd device and point it at the underlying disk device that will hold the encrypted data. NetBSD includes several other similar logical block devices, each of which provides some other function where cgd provides encryption. You can stack several of these logical block devices together: cgd on top of vnd is handy to make an encrypted volume in a regular file without repartitioning, or you can make an encrypted raid to protect your encrypted data against hard disk failure as well. Once you have created a cgd disk, you can use disklabel to divide it up into partitions, swapctl to enable swapping to those partitions or newfs to make filesystems, then mount and use those filesystems, just like any other new disk. 14.1.3. Availability The cgd driver was written by Roland C. Dowdeswell, and introduced in the NetBSD 2.0 release. 14.2. Components of the Crypto-Graphic Disk system A number of components and tools work together to make the cgd system effective. 14.2.1. Kernel driver pseudo-device To use cgd you need a kernel with support for the cgd pseudo-device. Make sure the sure the module is loaded: # modload cgd If the cgd driver was not already present/loaded (it is loaded by default in some ports), add cgd to /etc/modules.conf. 14.2.2. Ciphers The following ciphers are supported: adiantum (key size: 256 bits) The Adiantum tweakable wide-block cipher. The Adiantum tweak for each disk sector is taken to be the little-endian encoding of the disk sector number. Adiantum provides the best security by encrypting entire disk sectors at a time (512 bytes), and generally provides the best performance on machines without CPU support for accelerating AES. aes-cbc (key sizes: 128, 192, or 256 bits) AES in CBC mode. The CBC initialization vector for each disk sector is chosen to be the encryption under AES of the little-endian encoding of the disk sector number. The default key length is 128 bits. aes-xts (key sizes: 256 or 512 bits) AES in XTS mode. The XTS tweak for each disk sector is chosen to be the little-endian encoding of the disk sector number. AES-XTS uses a 256-bit or 512-bit key, composed of a pair of AES-128 or AES-256 keys. The default key length is 256, meaning AES-128. 14.2.3. Obsolete Ciphers The following obsolete ciphers are supported for compatibility with old disks. WARNING: These obsolete ciphers are implemented without timing side channel protection, so, for example, JavaScript code in a web browser that can measure the timing of disk activity may be able to recover the secret key. These are also based on 64-bit block ciphers and are therefore unsafe for disks much larger than a gigabyte. You should not use these except where compatibility with old disks is necessary. 3des-cbc (key size: 192 bits) 3DES (Triple DES with EDE3) in CBC mode. The CBC initialization vector for each disk sector is chosen to be the encryption under 3DES of the little-endian encoding of the disk sector number, which has no impact on security but reduces performance. Note: Internally, the "parity bits" of the 192-bit key are ignored, so there are only 168 bits of key material, and owing to generic attacks on 64-bit block ciphers and to meet-in-the-middle attacks on compositions of ciphers as in EDE3 the security is much lower than one might expect even for a 168-bit key. blowfish-cbc (key sizes: 40, 48, 56, 64, ?, 432, 440, or 448 bits) Blowfish in CBC mode. The CBC initialization vector for each disk sector is chosen to be the encryption under Blowfish of the little-endian encoding of the disk sector number. It is strongly encouraged that keys be at least 128 bits long. There are no performance advantages of using shorter keys. The default key length is 128 bits. 14.2.4. Verification Methods cgdconfig can examine the disk to verify that it was decrypted using the correct key. The following verification methods are available: none No verification is performed. This is dangerous unless you are configuring a new cgd device for the first time, because the key is not verified at all. Entering the wrong passphrase, for example, may destroy any data on the volume--any data read will be garbage, and any data written will turn into garbage if you ever re-open the cgd volume with the correct passphrase. disklabel cgdconfig scans for a valid BSD disklabel; see disklabel(5) and disklabel (8). mbr cgdconfig scans for a valid Master Boot Record, traditionally used on PCs; see fdisk(8). gpt cgdconfig scans for a valid GUID partition table; see gpt(8). ffs cgdconfig scans for a valid FFS file system, the default file system used in NetBSD; see mount_ffs(8). re-enter Rather than scanning anything on disk, cgdconfig will compute the key twice--for example, by asking the user to enter the passphrase twice--and fail if the results are different. 14.3. Example: encrypting your disk This section works through a step-by-step example of converting an existing system to use cgd, performing the following actions: 1. Preparing the disk and partitions 2. Scrub off all data 3. Create the cgd 4. Adjust config-files 5. Restoring your backed-up files to the encrypted disk 14.3.1. Preparing the disk First, decide which filesystems you want to move to an encrypted device. You're going to need to leave at least the small root (/) filesystem unencrypted, in order to load the kernel and run init, cgdconfig and the rc.d scripts that configure your cgd. In this example, we'll encrypt everything except the root (/) filesystem. We are going to delete and re-make partitions and filesystems, and will require a backup to restore the data. So make sure you have a current, reliable backup stored on a different disk or machine. Do your backup in single-user mode, with the filesystems unmounted, to ensure you get a clean dump. Make sure you back up the disklabel of your hard disk as well, so you have a record of the partition layout before you started. With the system at single user, / mounted read-write and everything else unmounted, use disklabel to delete all the data partitions you want to move into cgd. Then make a single new partition in all the space you just freed up, say, wd0e. Set the partition type for this partition to cgd Though it doesn't really matter what it is, it will help remind you that it's not a normal filesystem later. When finished, label the disk to save the new partition table. 14.3.2. Scrubbing the disk We have removed the partition table information, but the existing filesystems and data are still on disk. Even after we make a cgd device, create filesystems, and restore our data, some of these disk blocks might not yet be overwritten and still contain our data in plaintext. This is especially likely if the filesystems are mostly empty. We want to scrub the disk before we go further. We could use dd to copy /dev/zero over the new wd0e partition, but this will leave our disk full of zeros, except where we've written encrypted data later. We might not want to give an attacker any clues about which blocks contain real data, and which are free space, so we want to write "noise" into all the disk blocks. So we'll create a temporary cgd, configured with a random, unknown key. First, we configure a cgd to use a random key: # cgdconfig -s cgd0 /dev/wd0e aes-xts 256 < /dev/urandom Now we can write zeros into the raw partition of our cgd (/dev/rcgd0d on NetBSD /i386 and amd64, /dev/rcgd0c on most other platforms): # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rcgd0d bs=64k The encrypted zeros will look like random data on disk. This might take a while if you have a large disk. Once finished, unconfigure the random-key cgd: # cgdconfig -u cgd0 14.3.3. Creating the cgd The cgdconfig program, which manipulates cgd devices, uses parameters files to store such information as the encryption type, key length, and a random password salt for each cgd. These files are very important, and need to be kept safe--without them, you will not be able to decrypt the data! We'll generate a parameters file and write it into the default location (make sure the directory /etc/cgd exists and is mode 700): # cgdconfig -g -V disklabel -o /etc/cgd/wd0e aes-cbc 256 This creates a parameters file /etc/cgd/wd0e describing a cgd using the aes-cbc cipher method, a key verification method of disklabel, and a key length of 256 bits. It will look something like this: algorithm aes-cbc; iv-method encblkno; keylength 256; verify_method disklabel; keygen pkcs5_pbkdf2/sha1 { iterations 6275; salt AAAAgHTg/jKCd2ZJiOSGrgnadGw=; }; Note Consider this file being SACRED, BACK IT UP , and BACK IT UP AGAIN! Tip When creating the parameters file, cgdconfig reads from /dev/random to create the password salt. This read may block if there is not enough collected entropy in the random pool. This is unlikely, especially if you just finished overwriting the disk as in the previous step, but if it happens you can press keys on the console and/or move your mouse until the rnd device gathers enough entropy. Now it's time to create our cgd, for which we'll need a passphrase. This passphrase needs to be entered every time the cgd is opened, which is usually at each reboot. The encryption key is derived from this passphrase and the salt. Make sure you choose something you won't forget, and others won't guess. The first time we configure the cgd, there is no valid disklabel on the logical device, so the validation mechanism we want to use later won't work. We override it this one time: # cgdconfig -V re-enter cgd0 /dev/wd0e This will prompt twice for a matching passphrase, just in case you make a typo, which would otherwise leave you with a cgd encrypted with a passphrase that's different to what you expected. Now that we have a new cgd, we need to partition it and create filesystems. Recreate your previous partitions with all the same sizes, with the same letter names. Tip Remember to use the disklabel -I argument, because you're creating an initial label for a new disk. Note Although you want the sizes of your new partitions to be the same as the old, unencrypted ones, the offsets will be different because they're starting at the beginning of this virtual disk. Then, use newfs to create filesystems on all the relevant partitions. This time your partitions will reflect the cgd disk names, for example: # newfs /dev/rcgd0h 14.3.4. Modifying configuration files We've moved several filesystems to another (logical) disk, and we need to update /etc/fstab accordingly. Each partition will have the same letter (in this example), but will be on cgd0 rather than wd0. So you'll have /etc/fstab entries something like this: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1 /dev/cgd0b none swap sw 0 0 /dev/cgd0b /tmp mfs rw,-s=132m 0 0 /dev/cgd0e /var ffs rw 1 2 /dev/cgd0f /usr ffs rw 1 2 /dev/cgd0h /home ffs rw 1 2 Note /tmp should be a separate filesystem, either mfs or ffs, inside the cgd, so that your temporary files are not stored in plain text in the / filesystem. Each time you reboot, you're going to need your cgd configured early, before fsck runs and filesystems are mounted. Put the following line in /etc/cgd/cgd.conf: cgd0 /dev/wd0e This will use /etc/cgd/wd0e as config file for cgd0. To finally enable cgd on each boot, put the following line into /etc/rc.conf: cgd=YES You should now be prompted for /dev/cgd0's passphrase whenever /etc/rc starts. 14.3.5. Restoring data Next, mount your new filesystems, and restore your data into them. It often helps to have /tmp mounted properly first, as restore can use a fair amount of temporary space when extracting a large dumpfile. To test your changes to the boot configuration, umount the filesystems and unconfigure the cgd, so when you exit the single-user shell, rc will run like on a clean boot, prompting you for the passphrase and mounting your filesystems correctly. Now you can bring the system up to multi-user, and make sure everything works as before. 14.4. Example: encrypted CDs/DVDs 14.4.1. Creating an encrypted CD/DVD cgd(4) provides highly secure encryption of whole partitions or disks. Unfortunately, creating "normal" CDs is not disklabeling something and running newfs on it. Neither can you just put a CDR into the drive, configure cgd and assume it to write encrypted data when syncing. Standard CDs contain at least an ISO-9660 filesystem created with mkisofs(8) from the sysutils/cdrtools package. ISO images may not contain disklabels or cgd partitions. But of course CD reader/writer hardware doesn't care about filesystems at all. You can write raw data to the CD if you like--or an encrypted FFS filesystem, which is what we'll do here. But be warned, there is NO way to read this CD with any OS except NetBSD--not even other BSDs due to the lack of cgd. The basic steps when creating an encrypted CD are: * Create an (empty) imagefile * Register it as a virtual disk using vnd(4) * Configure cgd inside the vnd disk * Copy content to the cgd * Unconfigure all (flush!) * Write the image on a CD The first step when creating an encrypted CD is to create a single image file with dd. The image may not grow, so make it large enough to allow all CD content to fit into. Note that the whole image gets written to the CD later, so creating a 700 MB image for 100 MB content will still require a 700 MB write operation to the CD. Some info on DVDs here: DVDs are only 4.7 GB in marketing language. 4.7GB = 4.7 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 5046586573 bytes. In fact, a DVD can only approximately hold 4.7 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000 = 4700000000 bytes, which is about 4482 MB or about 4.37 GB. Keep this in mind when creating DVD images. Don't worry for CDs, they hold "real" 700 MB (734003200 Bytes). Invoke all following commands as root! For a CD: # dd if=/dev/zero of=image.img bs=1m count=700 or, for a DVD: # dd if=/dev/zero of=image.img bs=1m count=4482 Now configure a vnd(4)-pseudo disk with the image: # vnconfig vnd0 image.img In order to use cgd, a so-called parameter file, describing encryption parameters and a containing "password salt" must be generated. We'll call it / etc/cgd/image here. You can use one parameter file for several encrypted partitions (I use one different file for each host and a shared file image for all removable media, but that's up to you). AES-CBC with a keylength of 256 bits will be used in this example. Refer to cgd (4) and cgdconfig(8) for further details and alternative ciphers. The following command will create the parameter file as /etc/cgd/image. YOU DO NOT WANT TO INVOKE THE FOLLOWING COMMAND AGAIN after you burnt any CD, since a recreated parameter file is a lost parameter file and you'll never access your encrypted CD again (the "salt" this file contains will differ among each call). Consider this file being SACRED, BACK IT UP and BACK IT UP AGAIN! Use switch -V to specify verification method "disklabel" for the CD (cgd cannot detect whether you entered a valid password for the CD later when mounting it otherwise). # cgdconfig -g -V disklabel aes-cbc 256 > /etc/cgd/image Now it's time to configure a cgd for our vnd drive. (Replace slice "d" with "c" for all platforms that use "c" as the whole disk (where "sysctl kern.rawpartition" prints "2", not "3"); if you're on i386 or amd64, "d" is OK for you): # cgdconfig -V re-enter cgd1 /dev/vnd0d /etc/cgd/image The "-V re-enter" option is necessary as long as the cgd doesn't have a disklabel yet so we can access and configure it. This switch asks for a password twice and uses it for encryption. Now it's time to create a disklabel inside the cgd. The defaults of the label are ok, so invoking disklabel with # disklabel -e -I cgd1 and leaving vi with ":wq" immediately will do. Let's create a filesystem on the cgd, and finally mount it somewhere: # newfs /dev/rcgd1a # mount /dev/cgd1a /mnt The cgd is alive! Now fill /mnt with content. When finished, reverse the configuration process. The steps are: 1. Unmounting the cgd1a: # umount /mnt 2. Unconfiguring the cgd: # cgdconfig -u cgd1 3. Unconfiguring the vnd: # vnconfig -u vnd0 The following commands are examples to burn the images on CD or DVD. Please adjust the dev= for cdrecord or the /dev/rcd0d for growisofs. Note the "rcd0d" is necessary with NetBSD. Growisofs is available in the sysutils/dvd+rw-tools package. Again, use "c" instead of "d" if this is the raw partition on your platform. Finally, write the image file to a CD: # cdrecord dev=/dev/rcd0d -v image.img ...or to a DVD: # growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/rcd0d=image.img Congratulations! You've just created a really secure CD! 14.4.2. Using an encrypted CD/DVD After creating an encrypted CD as described above, we're not done yet--what about mounting it again? One might guess, configuring the cgd on /dev/cd0d is enough--no, it is not. NetBSD cannot access FFS file systems on media that is not 512 bytes/sector format. It doesn't matter that the cgd on the CD is, since the CD's disklabel the cgd resides in has 2048 bytes/sector. But the CD driver cd(4) is smart enough to grant "write" access to the (emulated) disklabel on the CD. So before configuring the cgd, let's have a look at the disklabel and modify it a bit: # disklabel -e cd0 # /dev/rcd0d: type: ATAPI disk: mydisc label: fictitious flags: removable bytes/sector: 2048 # -- Change to 512 (= orig / 4) sectors/track: 100 # -- Change to 400 (= orig * 4) tracks/cylinder: 1 sectors/cylinder: 100 # -- Change to 400 (= orig * 4) cylinders: 164 total sectors: 16386 # -- Change to value of slice "d" (=65544) rpm: 300 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 4 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 65544 0 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 655+) d: 65544 0 ISO9660 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 655+) If you don't want to do these changes every time by hand, you can use Florian Stoehr's tool neb-cd512 which is (at time of writing this) in pkgsrc-wip and will move to sysutils/neb-cd512 soon. You can also download the neb-cd512 source from http://sourceforge.net/projects/neb-stoehr/ (be sure to use neb-cd512, not neb-wipe!). It is invoked with the disk name as parameter, by root: # neb-cd512 cd0 Now as the disklabel is in 512 b/s format, accessing the CD is as easy as: # cgdconfig cgd1 /dev/cd0d /etc/cgd/image # mount -o ro /dev/cgd1a /mnt Note that the cgd MUST be mounted read-only or you'll get illegal command errors from the cd(4) driver which can in some cases make even mounting a CD-based cgd impossible! Now we're done! Enjoy your secure CD! # ls /mnt Remember you have to reverse all steps to remove the CD: # umount /mnt # cgdconfig -u cgd1 # eject cd0 14.5. Example: encrypted iSCSI devices 14.5.1. Creating an encrypted iSCSI device To encrypt the iSCSI device, we use the NetBSD iSCSI initiator, available in NetBSD-6 and newer, and the standard cgd device. In all, setting up an encrypted device in this manner should take less than 15 minutes, even for someone unfamiliar with iSCSI or cgd. The approach is to layer a vnd on top of the "storage" file presented by the iSCSI target. This is exactly the same as normal. On top of that vnd, we layer a cgd device, which ensures that all data is encrypted on the iSCSI device. WARNING: cgd only keeps the content of the volume secret--it doesn't keep the access patterns secret, and it doesn't prevent or even detect a malicious network or iSCSI target tampering with the volume. 14.5.2. Device Initialisation Firstly, the initiator is started, pointing at the machine which is presenting the iSCSI storage (i.e. the machine on which the iSCSI target is running). In this example, the target is running on the same machine as the initiator (a laptop called, in a moment of inspiration, inspiron1300). A 50 MB iSCSI target is being presented as target1. # iscsi-initiator -u agc -h inspiron1300.wherever.co.uk /mnt & [1] 11196 # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/dk0 28101396 20862004 5834324 78% / kernfs 1 1 0 100% /kern procfs 4 4 0 100% /proc ptyfs 1 1 0 100% /dev/pts /dev/puffs 0 0 0 100% /mnt Looking at the last line, we can see that the initiator is running via the puffs device. A vnd device is created on top of the storage which the target is presenting: # vnconfig vnd0 /mnt/inspiron1300.wherever.co.uk/target1/storage A disklabel which is offset 63 blocks into the iSCSI device needs to be added. This is so that the encrypted device which we shall put on top of the vnd does not clash with the vnd's label. The cgd's type should be set to "cgd". # disklabel -e vnd0 # /dev/rvnd0d: type: vnd disk: vnd label: fictitious flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 32 tracks/cylinder: 64 sectors/cylinder: 2048 cylinders: 50 total sectors: 102400 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 4 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 102336 63 cgd 2048 16384 28360 # (Cyl. 0 - 49) d: 102400 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 49) The cgd device can now be created on the vnd device # cgdconfig -s cgd0 /dev/vnd0a aes-xts 256 < /dev/urandom and the cgd device's storage zeroed # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rcgd0d bs=32k dd: /dev/rcgd0d: Invalid argument 1601+0 records in 1600+0 records out 52428800 bytes transferred in 16.633 secs (3152095 bytes/sec) Unconfigure the cgd device and write a disklabel using the verification method onto the cgd. Note: sometimes, this process does not always complete properly, and so it has to be repeated. # cgdconfig -g -V disklabel -o /etc/cgd/vnd0a aes-cbc 256 cgdconfig: could not calibrate pkcs5_pbkdf2 cgdconfig: Failed to generate defaults for keygen # cgdconfig -g -V disklabel -o /etc/cgd/vnd0a aes-cbc 256 A password can then be added to the cgd device # cgdconfig -V re-enter cgd0 /dev/vnd0a /dev/vnd0a's passphrase: re-enter device's passphrase: Then create a disklabel inside the cgd itself # disklabel -I -e cgd0 # /dev/rcgd0d: type: cgd disk: cgd label: fictitious flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 2048 tracks/cylinder: 1 sectors/cylinder: 2048 cylinders: 49 total sectors: 102336 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 4 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 102336 0 4.2BSD 2048 16384 28360 # (Cyl. 0 - 49*) d: 102336 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 49*) Having placed a disklabel inside the cgd, we can now make a filesystem on there: # newfs /dev/rcgd0a /dev/rcgd0a: 50.0MB (102336 sectors) block size 8192, fragment size 1024 using 4 cylinder groups of 12.49MB, 1599 blks, 3136 inodes. super-block backups (for fsck_ffs -b #) at: 32, 25616, 51200, 76784, the new file system in the cgd can now be mounted # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/dk0 28101396 20910216 5786112 78% / kernfs 1 1 0 100% /kern procfs 4 4 0 100% /proc ptyfs 1 1 0 100% /dev/pts /dev/puffs 0 0 0 100% /mnt # mount /dev/cgd0a /iscsi # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/dk0 28101396 20910216 5786112 78% / kernfs 1 1 0 100% /kern procfs 4 4 0 100% /proc ptyfs 1 1 0 100% /dev/pts /dev/puffs 0 0 0 100% /mnt /dev/cgd0a 49519 1 47043 0% /iscsi The new file system, mounted on /iscsi, can now be used as normal. 14.5.3. Unmounting the Encrypted Device The device can be freed up using the following commands # umount /iscsi # cgdconfig -u cgd0 # vnconfig -u vnd0 14.5.4. Normal Usage In normal usage, the device can be mounted. Firstly, the initiator must be configured to connect to the device: # vnconfig vnd0 /mnt/inspiron1300.wherever.co.uk/target1/storage # cgdconfig cgd0 /dev/vnd0a /dev/vnd0a's passphrase: # mount /dev/cgd0a /iscsi # ls -al /iscsi total 3 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jan 1 1970 . drwxr-xr-x 35 root wheel 1536 Jan 5 08:59 .. # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/dk0 28101396 20910100 5786228 78% / kernfs 1 1 0 100% /kern procfs 4 4 0 100% /proc ptyfs 1 1 0 100% /dev/pts /dev/puffs 0 0 0 100% /mnt /dev/cgd0a 49519 1 47043 0% /iscsi 14.6. Suggestions and Warnings You now have your filesystems encrypted within a cgd. When your machine is shut down, the data is protected, and can't be decrypted without the passphrase. However, there are still some dangers you should be aware of, and more you can do with cgd. This section documents several further suggestions and warnings that will help you use cgd effectively. * Use multiple cgd's for different kinds of data, one mounted all the time and others mounted only when needed. * Use a cgd configured on top of a vnd made from a file on a remote network fileserver (NFS, SMBFS, CODA, etc) to safely store private data on a shared system. This is similar to the procedure for using encrypted CDs and DVDs described in Section 14.4, "Example: encrypted CDs/DVDs". 14.6.1. Using a random-key cgd for swap The following section will be replaced in NetBSD 10 by a sysctl knob " vm.swap_encrypt=1", which provides better security and simpler setup. You may want to use a dedicated random-key cgd for swap space, regenerating the key each reboot. The advantage of this is that once your machine is rebooted, any sensitive program memory contents that may have been paged out are permanently unrecoverable, because the decryption key is never known to you. We created a temporary cgd with a random key when scrubbing the disk in the example above, using a shorthand cgdconfig -s invocation to avoid creating a parameters file. The cgdconfig params file includes a "randomkey" keygen method. This is more appropriate for "permanent" random-key configurations, and facilitates the easy automatic configuration of these volumes at boot time. For example, if you wanted to convert your existing /dev/wd0b partition to a dedicated random-key cgd1, use the following command to generate /etc/cgd/wd0b: # cgdconfig -g -o /etc/cgd/wd0b -V none -k randomkey blowfish-cbc When using the randomkey keygen method, only verification method "none" can be used, because the contents of the new cgd are effectively random each time (the previous data decrypted with a random key). Likewise, the new disk will not have a valid label or partitions, and swapctl will complain about configuring swap devices not marked as such in a disklabel. In order to automate the process of labeling the disk, prepare an appropriate disklabel and save it to a file, for example /etc/cgd/wd0b.disklabel. Please refer to disklabel(8) for information about how to use disklabel to set up a swap partition. On each reboot, to restore this saved label to the new cgd, create the /etc/ rc.conf.d/cgd file as below: swap_device="cgd1" swap_disklabel="/etc/cgd/wd0b.disklabel" start_postcmd="cgd_swap" cgd_swap() { if [ -f $swap_disklabel ]; then disklabel -R -r $swap_device $swap_disklabel fi } The same technique could be extended to encompass using newfs to re-create an ffs filesystem for /tmp if you didn't want to use mfs. 14.6.2. Warnings Avoid data loss by making sure you can always recover your passphrase and parameters file. Protect the parameters file from disclosure, perhaps by storing it on removable media as above, because the salt it contains helps protect against dictionary attacks on the passphrase. Keeping the data encrypted on your disk is all very well, but what about other copies? You already have at least one other such copy (the backup we used during this setup), and it's not encrypted. Piping dump through file-based encryption tools like gpg can be one way of addressing this issue, but make sure you have all the keys and tools you need to decrypt it to restore after a disaster. Like any form of software encryption, the cgd key stays in kernel memory while the device is configured, and may be accessible to privileged programs and users, such as /dev/kmem grovellers. Taking other system security steps, such as running with elevated securelevel, is highly recommended. Once the cgd volumes are mounted as normal filesystems, their contents are accessible like any other file. Take care of file permissions and ensure your running system is protected against application and network security attack. Avoid using suspend/resume, especially for laptops with a BIOS suspend-to-disk function. If an attacker can resume your laptop with the key still in memory, or read it from the suspend-to-disk memory image on the hard disk later, the whole point of using cgd is lost. 14.7. Further Reading The following resources contain more information on CGD and the cryptography underlying it: Bibliography [nycbug-cgd] I want my cgd aka: I want an encrypted pseudo-device on my laptop. [elric-cgd] Roland Dowdeswell and John Ioannidis. "The CryptoGraphic Disk Driver". Proceedings of the FREENIX Track: 2003 USENIX Annual Technical Conference. USENIX Association. 179-186. June 9-14, 2003. [hubertf-cgd] Feyrer Hubert. CryptoGraphicFile (CGF), or how to keep sensitive data on your laptop. [adiantum] Paul Crowley and Eric Biggers. "Adiantum: length-preserving encryption for entry-level processors". Transactions on Symmetric Cryptology. 2018. 4. International Association of Cryptologic Research. 39-61. [fips46-3] FIPS PUB 46-3: Data Encryption Standard (DES). National Institute of Standards and Technology. United States Department of Commerce. October 25, 1999, withdrawn May 19, 2005. [fips197] FIPS PUB 197: Advanced Encryption Standard (DES). National Institute of Standards and Technology. United States Department of Commerce. November 2001. [nist-sp800-38a] Morris Dworkin. Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: Methods and Techniques. NIST Special Publication 800-38A. National Institute of Standards and Technology. United States Department of Commerce. December 2001. [nist-sp800-38e] Morris Dworkin. Recommendation for Block Cipher Modes of Operation: the XTS-AES Mode for Confidentiality on Storage Devices. NIST Special Publication 800-38E. National Institute of Standards and Technology. United States Department of Commerce. January 2010. [blowfish] Bruce Schneier. The Blowfish Encryption Algorithm. superseded by Twofish, superseded by Threefish. 1993. [sweet32] Karthikeyan Bhargavan and Gaétan Leurent. Sweet32: Birthday attacks on 64-bit block ciphers in TLS and OpenVPN. Chapter 15. Concatenated Disk Device (CCD) configuration Table of Contents 15.1. Install physical media 15.2. Configure Kernel Support 15.3. Disklabel each volume member of the CCD 15.4. Configure the CCD 15.5. Initialize the CCD device 15.6. Create a 4.2BSD/UFS filesystem on the new CCD device 15.7. Mount the filesystem The CCD driver allows the user to "concatenate" several physical disks into one pseudo volume. While RAIDframe (see Chapter 16, NetBSD RAIDframe) also allows doing this to create RAID level 0 sets, it does not allow you to do striping across disks of different geometry, which is where CCD comes in handy. CCD also allows for an "interleave" to improve disk performance with a gained space loss. This example will not cover that feature. The steps required to setup a CCD are as follows: 1. Install physical media 2. Configure kernel support 3. Disklabel each volume member of the CCD 4. Configure the CCD conf file 5. Initialize the CCD device 6. Create a filesystem on the new CCD device 7. Mount the CCD filesystem This example features a CCD setup on NetBSD/sparc 1.5. The CCD will reside on 4 SCSI disks in a generic external Sun disk pack chassis connected to the external 50 pin SCSI port. 15.1. Install physical media This step is at your own discretion, depending on your platform and the hardware at your disposal. From my DMESG: Disk #1: probe(esp0:0:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd0: 2049 MB, 3992 cyl, 9 head, 116 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4197405 sectors Disk #2 probe(esp0:1:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd1 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd1: 2049 MB, 3992 cyl, 9 head, 116 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4197405 sectors Disk #3 probe(esp0:2:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd2 at scsibus0 target 2 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd2: 1005 MB, 1872 cyl, 15 head, 73 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2059140 sectors Disk #4 probe(esp0:3:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd3 at scsibus0 target 3 lun 0: SCSI2 0 sd3: 1005 MB, 1872 cyl, 15 head, 73 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2059140 sectors 15.2. Configure Kernel Support The following kernel configuration directive is needed to provide CCD device support. It is enabled in the GENERIC kernel: pseudo-device ccd 4 # concatenated disk devices In my kernel config, I also hard code SCSI ID associations to /dev device entries to prevent bad things from happening: sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd1 at scsibus0 target 1 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd2 at scsibus0 target 2 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd3 at scsibus0 target 3 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd4 at scsibus0 target 4 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd5 at scsibus0 target 5 lun ? # SCSI disk drives sd6 at scsibus0 target 6 lun ? # SCSI disk drives 15.3. Disklabel each volume member of the CCD Each member disk of the CCD will need a special file system established. In this example, I will need to disklabel: /dev/rsd0c /dev/rsd1c /dev/rsd2c /dev/rsd3c Note Always remember to disklabel the character device, not the block device, in / dev/r{s,w}d* Note On all platforms, the c slice is symbolic of the entire NetBSD partition and is reserved. You will probably want to remove any pre-existing disklabels on the disks in the CCD. This can be accomplished in one of two ways with the dd(1) command: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0c bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd1c bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2c bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd3c bs=8k count=1 If your port uses a MBR (Master Boot Record) to partition the disks so that the NetBSD partitions are only part of the overall disk, and other OSs like Windows or Linux use other parts, you can void the MBR and all partitions on disk by using the command: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd1d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd3d bs=8k count=1 This will make all data on the entire disk inaccessible. Note that the entire disk is slice d on i386 (and some other ports), and c elsewhere (e.g. on sparc). See the "kern.rawpartition" sysctl - "3" means "d", "2" means "c". The default disklabel for the disk will look similar to this: # disklabel -r sd0 [...snip...] bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 116 tracks/cylinder: 9 sectors/cylinder: 1044 cylinders: 3992 total sectors: 4197405 [..snip...] 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] c: 4197405 0 unused 1024 8192 # (Cyl. 0 - 4020*) You will need to create one "slice" on the NetBSD partition of the disk that consumes the entire partition. The slice must begin at least one cylinder offset from the beginning of the disk/partition to provide space for the special CCD disklabel. The offset should be 1x sectors/cylinder (see following note). Therefore, the "size" value should be "total sectors" minus 1x "sectors/ cylinder". Edit your disklabel accordingly: # disklabel -e sd0 Note The offset of a slice of type "ccd" must be a multiple of the "sectors/cylinder " value. Note Be sure to export EDITOR=[path to your favorite editor] before editing the disklabels. Note The slice must be fstype ccd. Because there will only be one slice on this partition, you can recycle the c slice (normally reserved for symbolic uses). Change your disklabel to the following: 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] c: 4196361 1044 ccd # (Cyl. 1 - 4020*) Optionally you can setup a slice other than c to use, simply adjust accordingly below: 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 4196361 1044 ccd # (Cyl. 1 - 4020*) c: 4197405 0 unused 1024 8192 # (Cyl. 0 - 4020*) Be sure to write the label when you have completed. Disklabel will object to your disklabel and prompt you to re-edit if it does not pass its sanity checks. 15.4. Configure the CCD Once all disks are properly labeled, you will need to generate a configuration file, /etc/ccd.conf. The file does not exist by default, and you will need to create a new one. The format is: #ccd ileave flags component devices Note For the "ileave", if a value of zero is used then the disks are concatenated, but if you use a value equal to the "sectors/track" number the disks are interleaved. Example in this case: # more /etc/ccd.conf ccd0 0 none /dev/sd0c /dev/sd1c /dev/sd2c /dev/sd3c Note The CCD driver expects block device files as components. Be sure not to use character device files in the configuration. 15.5. Initialize the CCD device Once you are confident that your CCD configuration is sane, you can initialize the device using the ccdconfig(8) command: Configure: # ccdconfig -C -f /etc/ccd.conf Unconfigure: # ccdconfig -u -f /etc/ccd.conf Initializing the CCD device will activate /dev entries: /dev/{,r}ccd#: # ls -la /dev/{,r}ccd0* brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 0 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0a brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 1 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0b brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 2 May 12 00:10 /dev/ccd0c brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 3 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0d brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 4 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0e brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 5 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0f brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 6 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0g brw-r----- 1 root operator 9, 7 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/ccd0h crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 0 Jun 12 20:40 /dev/rccd0a crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 1 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0b crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 2 Jun 12 20:58 /dev/rccd0c crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 3 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0d crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 4 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0e crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 5 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0f crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 6 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0g crw-r----- 1 root operator 23, 7 Apr 28 21:35 /dev/rccd0h 15.6. Create a 4.2BSD/UFS filesystem on the new CCD device You may now disklabel the new virtual disk device associated with your CCD: # disklabel -e ccd0 Once again, there will be only one slice, so you may either recycle the c slice or create a separate slice for use. # disklabel -r ccd0 # /dev/rccd0c: type: ccd disk: ccd label: default label flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 2048 tracks/cylinder: 1 sectors/cylinder: 2048 cylinders: 6107 total sectors: 12508812 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] c: 12508812 0 4.2BSD 1024 8192 16 # (Cyl. 0 - 6107*) The filesystem will then need to be formatted: # newfs /dev/rccd0c Warning: 372 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated /dev/rccd0c: 12508812 sectors in 6108 cylinders of 1 tracks, 2048 sectors 6107.8MB in 382 cyl groups (16 c/g, 16.00MB/g, 3968 i/g) super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at: [...] 15.7. Mount the filesystem Once you have a created a file system on the CCD device, you can then mount the file system against a mount point on your system. Be sure to mount the slice labeled type ffs or 4.2BSD: # mount /dev/ccd0c /mnt Then: # export BLOCKSIZE=1024; df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/sd6a 376155 320290 37057 89% / /dev/ccd0c 6058800 1 5755859 0% /mnt Congratulations, you now have a working CCD. To configure the CCD device at boot time, set ccd=yes in /etc/rc.conf. You can adjust /etc/fstab to get the filesystem mounted at boot: /dev/ccd0c /home ffs rw 1 2 Chapter 16. NetBSD RAIDframe Table of Contents 16.1. RAIDframe Introduction 16.1.1. About RAIDframe 16.1.2. A warning about Data Integrity, Backups, and High Availability 16.1.3. Getting Help 16.2. Setup RAIDframe Support 16.2.1. Kernel Support 16.2.2. Power Redundancy and Disk Caching 16.3. Example: RAID-1 Root Disk 16.3.1. Pseudo-Process Outline 16.3.2. Hardware Review 16.3.3. Initial Install on Disk0/wd0 16.3.4. Preparing Disk1/wd1 16.3.5. Initializing the RAID Device 16.3.6. Setting up Filesystems 16.3.7. Migrating System to RAID 16.3.8. The first boot with RAID 16.3.9. Adding Disk0/wd0 to RAID 16.3.10. Testing Boot Blocks 16.1. RAIDframe Introduction 16.1.1. About RAIDframe NetBSD uses the CMU RAIDframe software for its RAID subsystem. NetBSD is the primary platform for RAIDframe development. NetBSD also has another in-kernel RAID level 0 system in its ccd(4) subsystem (see Chapter 15, Concatenated Disk Device (CCD) configuration). You should possess some basic knowledge about RAID concepts and terminology before continuing. You should also be at least familiar with the different levels of RAID - Adaptec provides an excellent reference, and the raid(4) manpage contains a short overview too. 16.1.2. A warning about Data Integrity, Backups, and High Availability RAIDframe is a Software RAID implementation, as opposed to Hardware RAID. As such, it does not need special disk controllers supported by NetBSD. System administrators should give a great deal of consideration to whether software RAID or hardware RAID is more appropriate for their "Mission Critical" applications. For some projects you might consider the use of many of the hardware RAID devices supported by NetBSD. It is truly at your discretion what type of RAID you use, but it is recommend that you consider factors such as: manageability, commercial vendor support, load-balancing and failover, etc. Depending on the RAID level used, RAIDframe does provide redundancy in the event of a hardware failure. However, it is not a replacement for reliable backups! Software and user-error can still cause data loss. RAIDframe may be used as a mechanism for facilitating backups in systems without backup hardware, but this is not an ideal configuration. Finally, with regard to "high availability", RAID is only a very small component to ensuring data availability. Once more for good measure: Back up your data! 16.1.3. Getting Help If you encounter problems using RAIDframe, you have several options for obtaining help. 1. Read the RAIDframe man pages: raid(4) and raidctl(8) thoroughly. 2. Search the mailing list archives. Unfortunately, there is no NetBSD list dedicated to RAIDframe support. Depending on the nature of the problem, posts tend to end up in a variety of lists. At a very minimum, search netbsd-users@NetBSD.org, current-users@NetBSD.org. Also search the list for the NetBSD platform on which you are using RAIDframe: port-${ARCH} @NetBSD.org. 3. Search the Problem Report database. 4. If your problem persists: Post to the mailing list most appropriate (judgment call). Collect as much verbosely detailed information as possible before posting: Include your dmesg(8) output from /var/run/dmesg.boot, your kernel config(5) , your /etc/raid[0-9].conf, any relevant errors on /dev/ console, /var/log/messages, or to stdout/stderr of raidctl(8). The output of raidctl -s (if available) will be useful as well. Also include details on the troubleshooting steps you've taken thus far, exactly when the problem started, and any notes on recent changes that may have prompted the problem to develop. Remember to be patient when waiting for a response. 16.2. Setup RAIDframe Support The use of RAID will require software and hardware configuration changes. 16.2.1. Kernel Support The GENERIC kernel already has support for RAIDframe. If you have built a custom kernel for your environment the kernel configuration must have the following options: pseudo-device raid 8 # RAIDframe disk driver options RAID_AUTOCONFIG # auto-configuration of RAID components The RAID support must be detected by the NetBSD kernel, which can be checked by looking at the output of the dmesg(8) command. # dmesg|grep -i raid Kernelized RAIDframe activated Historically, the kernel must also contain static mappings between bus addresses and device nodes in /dev. This used to ensure consistency of devices within RAID sets in the event of a device failure after reboot. Since NetBSD 1.6, however, using the auto-configuration features of RAIDframe has been recommended over statically mapping devices. The auto-configuration features allow drives to move around on the system, and RAIDframe will automatically determine which components belong to which RAID sets. 16.2.2. Power Redundancy and Disk Caching If your system has an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), and/or if your system has redundant power supplies, you should consider enabling the read and write caches on your drives. On systems with redundant power, this will improve drive performance. On systems without redundant power, the write cache could endanger the integrity of RAID data in the event of a power loss. The dkctl(8) utility can be used for this on all kinds of disks that support the operation (SCSI, EIDE, SATA, ...): # dkctl wd0 getcache /dev/rwd0d: read cache enabled /dev/rwd0d: read cache enable is not changeable /dev/rwd0d: write cache enable is changeable /dev/rwd0d: cache parameters are not savable # dkctl wd0 setcache rw # dkctl wd0 getcache /dev/rwd0d: read cache enabled /dev/rwd0d: write-back cache enabled /dev/rwd0d: read cache enable is not changeable /dev/rwd0d: write cache enable is changeable /dev/rwd0d: cache parameters are not savable 16.3. Example: RAID-1 Root Disk This example explains how to setup RAID-1 root disk. With RAID-1 components are mirrored and therefore the server can be fully functional in the event of a single component failure. The goal is to provide a level of redundancy that will allow the system to encounter a component failure on either component disk in the RAID and: * Continue normal operations until a maintenance window can be scheduled. * Or, in the unlikely event that the component failure causes a system reboot, be able to quickly reconfigure the system to boot from the remaining component (platform dependent). Figure 16.1. RAID-1 Disk Logical Layout RAID-1 Disk Logical Layout Because RAID-1 provides both redundancy and performance improvements, its most practical application is on critical "system" partitions such as /, /usr, /var, swap, etc., where read operations are more frequent than write operations. For other file systems, such as /home or /var/{application}, other RAID levels might be considered (see the references above). If one were simply creating a generic RAID-1 volume for a non-root file system, the cookie-cutter examples from the man page could be followed, but because the root volume must be bootable, certain special steps must be taken during initial setup. Note This example will outline a process that differs only slightly between the x86 and sparc64 platforms. In an attempt to reduce excessive duplication of content, where differences do exist and are cosmetic in nature, they will be pointed out using a section such as this. If the process is drastically different, the process will branch into separate, platform dependent steps. 16.3.1. Pseudo-Process Outline Although a much more refined process could be developed using a custom copy of NetBSD installed on custom-developed removable media, presently the NetBSD install media lacks RAIDframe tools and support, so the following pseudo process has become the de facto standard for setting up RAID-1 Root. 1. Install a stock NetBSD onto Disk0 of your system. Figure 16.2. Perform generic install onto Disk0/wd0 Perform generic install onto Disk0/wd0 2. Use the installed system on Disk0/wd0 to setup a RAID Set composed of Disk1 /wd1 only. Figure 16.3. Setup RAID Set Setup RAID Set 3. Reboot the system off the Disk1/wd1 with the newly created RAID volume. Figure 16.4. Reboot using Disk1/wd1 of RAID Reboot using Disk1/wd1 of RAID 4. Add / re-sync Disk0/wd0 back into the RAID set. Figure 16.5. Mirror Disk1/wd1 back to Disk0/wd0 Mirror Disk1/wd1 back to Disk0/wd0 16.3.2. Hardware Review At present, the alpha, amd64, i386, pmax, sparc, sparc64, and vax NetBSD platforms support booting from RAID-1. Booting is not supported from any other RAID level. Booting from a RAID set is accomplished by teaching the 1st stage boot loader to understand both 4.2BSD/FFS and RAID partitions. The 1st boot block code only needs to know enough about the disk partitions and file systems to be able to read the 2nd stage boot blocks. Therefore, at any time, the system's BIOS / firmware must be able to read a drive with 1st stage boot blocks installed. On the x86 platform, configuring this is entirely dependent on the vendor of the controller card / host bus adapter to which your disks are connected. On sparc64 this is controlled by the IEEE 1275 Sun OpenBoot Firmware. This article assumes two identical IDE disks (/dev/wd{0,1}) which we are going to mirror (RAID-1). These disks are identified as: # grep ^wd /var/run/dmesg.boot wd0 at atabus0 drive 0: wd0: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA addressing wd0: 9541 MB, 19386 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 19541088 sectors wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 5 (Ultra/100) wd0(piixide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (Ultra/33) (using DMA data transfers) wd1 at atabus1 drive 0: wd1: drive supports 16-sector PIO transfers, LBA addressing wd1: 9541 MB, 19386 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 19541088 sectors wd1: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 5 (Ultra/100) wd1(piixide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (Ultra/33) (using DMA data transfers) Note If you are using SCSI, replace /dev/{,r}wd{0,1} with /dev/{,r}sd{0,1} In this example, both disks are jumpered as Master on separate channels on the same controller. You would never want to have both disks on the same bus on the same controller; this creates a single point of failure. Ideally you would have the disks on separate channels on separate controllers. Some SCSI controllers have multiple channels on the same controller, however, a SCSI bus reset on one channel could adversely affect the other channel if the ASIC/IC becomes overloaded. The trade-off with two controllers is that twice the bandwidth is used on the system bus. For purposes of simplification, this example shows two disks on different channels on the same controller. Note RAIDframe requires that all components be of the same size. Actually, it will use the lowest common denominator among components of dissimilar sizes. For purposes of illustration, the example uses two disks of identical geometries. Also, consider the availability of replacement disks if a component suffers a critical hardware failure. Tip Two disks of identical vendor model numbers could have different geometries if the drive possesses "grown defects". Use a low-level program to examine the grown defects table of the disk. These disks are obviously suboptimal candidates for use in RAID and should be avoided. 16.3.3. Initial Install on Disk0/wd0 Perform a very generic installation onto your Disk0/wd0. Follow the INSTALL instructions for your platform. Install all the sets but do not bother customizing anything other than the kernel as it will be overwritten. See also Chapter 2, Installing NetBSD: Preliminary considerations and preparations. Tip On x86, during the sysinst install, when prompted if you want to "use the entire disk for NetBSD", answer "yes". Once the installation is complete, you should examine the disklabel(8) and fdisk(8) / sunlabel(8) outputs on the system: # df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/wd0a 9487886 502132 8511360 5% / On x86: # disklabel -r wd0 type: unknown disk: Disk00 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 1008 cylinders: 19386 total sectors: 19541088 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 16 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19276992 63 4.2BSD 1024 8192 46568 # (Cyl. 0* - 19124*) b: 264033 19277055 swap # (Cyl. 19124* - 19385) c: 19541025 63 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0* - 19385) d: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) # fdisk /dev/rwd0d Disk: /dev/rwd0d NetBSD disklabel disk geometry: cylinders: 19386, heads: 16, sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 BIOS disk geometry: cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 Partition table: 0: NetBSD (sysid 169) start 63, size 19541025 (9542 MB, Cyls 0-1216/96/1), Active 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. First active partition: 0 On Sparc64 the command / output differs slightly: # disklabel -r wd0 type: unknown disk: Disk0 [...snip...] 8 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19278000 0 4.2BSD 1024 8192 46568 # (Cyl. 0 - 19124) b: 263088 19278000 swap # (Cyl. 19125 - 19385) c: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) # sunlabel /dev/rwd0c sunlabel> P a: start cyl = 0, size = 19278000 (19125/0/0 - 9413.09Mb) b: start cyl = 19125, size = 263088 (261/0/0 - 128.461Mb) c: start cyl = 0, size = 19541088 (19386/0/0 - 9541.55Mb) 16.3.4. Preparing Disk1/wd1 Once you have a stock install of NetBSD on Disk0/wd0, you are ready to begin. Disk1/wd1 will be visible and unused by the system. To setup Disk1/wd1, you will use disklabel(8) to allocate the entire second disk to the RAID-1 set. Tip The best way to ensure that Disk1/wd1 is completely empty is to 'zero' out the first few sectors of the disk with dd(1) . This will erase the MBR (x86) or Sun disk label (sparc64), as well as the NetBSD disk label. If you make a mistake at any point during the RAID setup process, you can always refer to this process to restore the disk to an empty state. Note On sparc64, use /dev/rwd1c instead of /dev/rwd1d! # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd1d bs=8k count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 8192 bytes transferred in 0.003 secs (2730666 bytes/sec) Once this is complete, on x86, verify that both the MBR and NetBSD disk labels are gone. On sparc64, verify that the Sun Disk label is gone as well. On x86: # fdisk /dev/rwd1d fdisk: primary partition table invalid, no magic in sector 0 Disk: /dev/rwd1d NetBSD disklabel disk geometry: cylinders: 19386, heads: 16, sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 BIOS disk geometry: cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 Partition table: 0: 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. # disklabel -r wd1 [...snip...] 16 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] c: 19541025 63 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0* - 19385) d: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) On sparc64: # sunlabel /dev/rwd1c sunlabel: bogus label on `/dev/wd1c' (bad magic number) # disklabel -r wd1 [...snip...] 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] c: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) disklabel: boot block size 0 disklabel: super block size 0 Now that you are certain the second disk is empty, on x86 you must establish the MBR on the second disk using the values obtained from Disk0/wd0 above. We must remember to mark the NetBSD partition active or the system will not boot. You must also create a NetBSD disklabel on Disk1/wd1 that will enable a RAID volume to exist upon it. On sparc64, you will need to simply disklabel(8) the second disk which will write the proper Sun Disk Label. Tip disklabel(8) will use your shell' s environment variable $EDITOR variable to edit the disklabel. The default is vi(1) On x86: # fdisk -0ua /dev/rwd1d fdisk: primary partition table invalid, no magic in sector 0 Disk: /dev/rwd1d NetBSD disklabel disk geometry: cylinders: 19386, heads: 16, sectors/track: 63 (1008 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 BIOS disk geometry: cylinders: 1023, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder) total sectors: 19541088 Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks? [n] Partition 0: The data for partition 0 is: sysid: [0..255 default: 169] start: [0..1216cyl default: 63, 0cyl, 0MB] size: [0..1216cyl default: 19541025, 1216cyl, 9542MB] bootmenu: [] Do you want to change the active partition? [n] y Choosing 4 will make no partition active. active partition: [0..4 default: 0] 0 Are you happy with this choice? [n] y We haven't written the MBR back to disk yet. This is your last chance. Partition table: 0: NetBSD (sysid 169) start 63, size 19541025 (9542 MB, Cyls 0-1216/96/1), Active 1: 2: 3: Bootselector disabled. Should we write new partition table? [n] y # disklabel -r -e -I wd1 type: unknown disk: Disk1 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 1008 cylinders: 19386 total sectors: 19541088 [...snip...] 16 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19541025 63 RAID # (Cyl. 0*-19385) c: 19541025 63 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0*-19385) d: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 -19385) On sparc64: # disklabel -r -e -I wd1 type: unknown disk: Disk1 label: flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 1008 cylinders: 19386 total sectors: 19541088 [...snip...] 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19541088 0 RAID # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) c: 19541088 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19385) # sunlabel /dev/rwd1c sunlabel> P a: start cyl = 0, size = 19541088 (19386/0/0 - 9541.55Mb) c: start cyl = 0, size = 19541088 (19386/0/0 - 9541.55Mb) Note On x86, the c: and d: slices are reserved. c: represents the NetBSD portion of the disk. d: represents the entire disk. Because we want to allocate the entire NetBSD MBR partition to RAID, and because a: resides within the bounds of c:, the a: and c: slices have same size and offset values. The offset must start at a track boundary (an increment of sectors matching the sectors/track value in the disk label). On sparc64 however, c: represents the entire NetBSD partition in the Sun disk label and d: is not reserved. Also note that sparc64's c: and a: require no offset from the beginning of the disk, however if they should need to be, the offset must start at a cylinder boundary (an increment of sectors matching the sectors/cylinder value). 16.3.5. Initializing the RAID Device Next we create the configuration file for the RAID set / volume. Traditionally, RAIDframe configuration files belong in /etc and would be read and initialized at boot time, however, because we are creating a bootable RAID volume, the configuration data will actually be written into the RAID volume using the "auto-configure" feature. Therefore, files are needed only during the initial setup and should not reside in /etc. # vi /var/tmp/raid0.conf START array 1 2 0 START disks absent /dev/wd1a START layout 128 1 1 1 START queue fifo 100 Note that absent means a non-existing disk. This will allow us to establish the RAID volume with a bogus component that we will substitute for Disk0/wd0 at a later time. Next we configure the RAID device and initialize the serial number to something unique. In this example we use a "YYYYMMDDRevision" scheme. The format you choose is entirely at your discretion, however the scheme you choose should ensure that no two RAID sets use the same serial number at the same time. After that we initialize the RAID set for the first time, safely ignoring the errors regarding the bogus component. # raidctl -v -C /var/tmp/raid0.conf raid0 Ignoring missing component at column 0 raid0: Component absent being configured at col: 0 Column: 0 Num Columns: 0 Version: 0 Serial Number: 0 Mod Counter: 0 Clean: No Status: 0 Number of columns do not match for: absent absent is not clean! raid0: Component /dev/wd1a being configured at col: 1 Column: 0 Num Columns: 0 Version: 0 Serial Number: 0 Mod Counter: 0 Clean: No Status: 0 Column out of alignment for: /dev/wd1a Number of columns do not match for: /dev/wd1a /dev/wd1a is not clean! raid0: There were fatal errors raid0: Fatal errors being ignored. raid0: RAID Level 1 raid0: Components: component0[**FAILED**] /dev/wd1a raid0: Total Sectors: 19540864 (9541 MB) # raidctl -v -I 2009122601 raid0 # raidctl -v -i raid0 Initiating re-write of parity raid0: Error re-writing parity! Parity Re-write status: # tail -1 /var/log/messages Dec 26 00:00:30 /netbsd: raid0: Error re-writing parity! # raidctl -v -s raid0 Components: component0: failed /dev/wd1a: optimal No spares. component0 status is: failed. Skipping label. Component label for /dev/wd1a: Row: 0, Column: 1, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2009122601, Mod Counter: 7 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: No Root partition: No Last configured as: raid0 Parity status: DIRTY Reconstruction is 100% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. 16.3.6. Setting up Filesystems Caution The root filesystem must begin at sector 0 of the RAID device. Else, the primary boot loader will be unable to find the secondary boot loader. The RAID device is now configured and available. The RAID device is a pseudo disk-device. It will be created with a default disk label. You must now determine the proper sizes for disklabel slices for your production environment. For purposes of simplification in this example, our system will have 8.5 gigabytes dedicated to / as /dev/raid0a and the rest allocated to swap as /dev/raid0b. Caution This is an unrealistic disk layout for a production server; the NetBSD Guide can expand on proper partitioning technique. See Chapter 2, Installing NetBSD: Preliminary considerations and preparations Note Note that 1 GB is 2*1024*1024=2097152 blocks (1 block is 512 bytes, or 0.5 kilobytes). Despite what the underlying hardware composing a RAID set is, the RAID pseudo disk will always have 512 bytes/sector. Note In our example, the space allocated to the underlying a: slice composing the RAID set differed between x86 and sparc64, therefore the total sectors of the RAID volumes differs: On x86: # disklabel -r -e -I raid0 type: RAID disk: raid label: fictitious flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 128 tracks/cylinder: 8 sectors/cylinder: 1024 cylinders: 19082 total sectors: 19540864 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19015680 0 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 18569) b: 525184 19015680 swap # (Cyl. 18570 - 19082*) d: 19540864 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19082*) On sparc64: # disklabel -r -e -I raid0 [...snip...] total sectors: 19539968 [...snip...] 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19251200 0 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 18799) b: 288768 19251200 swap # (Cyl. 18800 - 19081) c: 19539968 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19081) Next, format the newly created / partition as a 4.2BSD FFSv1 File System: # newfs -O 1 /dev/rraid0a /dev/rraid0a: 9285.0MB (19015680 sectors) block size 16384, fragment size 2048 using 51 cylinder groups of 182.06MB, 11652 blks, 23040 inodes. super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at: 32, 372896, 745760, 1118624, 1491488, 1864352, 2237216, 2610080, 2982944, ............................................................................... # fsck -fy /dev/rraid0a ** /dev/rraid0a ** File system is already clean ** Last Mounted on ** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes ** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames ** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity ** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts ** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups 1 files, 1 used, 4679654 free (14 frags, 584955 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation) 16.3.7. Migrating System to RAID The new RAID filesystems are now ready for use. We mount them under /mnt and copy all files from the old system. This can be done using dump(8) or pax(1). # mount /dev/raid0a /mnt # df -h /mnt Filesystem Size Used Avail %Cap Mounted on /dev/raid0a 8.9G 2.0K 8.5G 0% /mnt # cd /; pax -v -X -rw -pe . /mnt [...snip...] The NetBSD install now exists on the RAID filesystem. We need to fix the mount-points in the new copy of /etc/fstab or the system will not come up correctly. Replace instances of wd0 with raid0. The swap should be unconfigured upon shutdown to avoid parity errors on the RAID device. This can be done with a simple, one-line setting in /etc/rc.conf. # vi /mnt/etc/rc.conf swapoff=YES Next the boot loader must be installed on Disk1/wd1. Failure to install the loader on Disk1/wd1 will render the system un-bootable if Disk0/wd0 fails making the RAID-1 pointless. Tip Because the BIOS/CMOS menus in many x86 based systems are misleading with regard to device boot order. I highly recommend utilizing the "-o timeout=X" option supported by the x86 1st stage boot loader. Setup unique values for each disk as a point of reference so that you can easily determine from which disk the system is booting. Caution Although it may seem logical to install the 1st stage boot block into /dev/rwd1 {c,d} with installboot(8) , this is no longer the case since NetBSD 1.6.x. If you make this mistake, the boot sector will become irrecoverably damaged and you will need to start the process over again. On x86, install the boot loader into /dev/rwd1a : # /usr/sbin/installboot -o timeout=30 -v /dev/rwd1a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2 File system: /dev/rwd1a Primary bootstrap: /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2 Ignoring PBR with invalid magic in sector 0 of `/dev/rwd1a' Boot options: timeout 30, flags 0, speed 9600, ioaddr 0, console pc Note As of NetBSD 6.x, the default filesystem type on x86 platforms is FFSv2 instead of FFSv1. Make sure you use the correct 1st stage boot block file /usr/mdec/ bootxx_ffsv{1,2} when running the installboot(8) command. To find out which filesystem type is currently in use, the command file(1) or dumpfs(8) can be used: # /usr/bin/file -s /dev/rwd1a /usr/bin/file -s /dev/rwd1a /dev/rwd1a: Unix Fast File system [v2] (little-endian), last mounted on ... or # /usr/sbin/dumpfs -s /dev/rwd1a file system: /dev/rwd1a format FFSv2 endian little-endian ... On sparc64, install the boot loader into /dev/rwd1a as well, however the "-o" flag is unsupported (and un-needed thanks to OpenBoot): # /usr/sbin/installboot -v /dev/rwd1a /usr/mdec/bootblk File system: /dev/rwd1a Primary bootstrap: /usr/mdec/bootblk Bootstrap start sector: 1 Bootstrap byte count: 5140 Writing bootstrap Finally the RAID set must be made auto-configurable and the system should be rebooted. After the reboot everything is mounted from the RAID devices. # raidctl -v -A root raid0 raid0: Autoconfigure: Yes raid0: Root: Yes # tail -2 /var/log/messages raid0: New autoconfig value is: 1 raid0: New rootpartition value is: 1 # raidctl -v -s raid0 [...snip...] Autoconfig: Yes Root partition: Yes Last configured as: raid0 [...snip...] # shutdown -r now Warning Always use shutdown(8) when shutting down. Never simply use reboot(8). reboot (8) will not properly run shutdown RC scripts and will not safely disable swap. This will cause dirty parity at every reboot. 16.3.8. The first boot with RAID At this point, temporarily configure your system to boot Disk1/wd1. See notes in Section 16.3.10, "Testing Boot Blocks" for details on this process. The system should boot now and all filesystems should be on the RAID devices. The RAID will be functional with a single component, however the set is not fully functional because the bogus drive (wd9) has failed. # egrep -i "raid|root" /var/run/dmesg.boot raid0: RAID Level 1 raid0: Components: component0[**FAILED**] /dev/wd1a raid0: Total Sectors: 19540864 (9541 MB) boot device: raid0 root on raid0a dumps on raid0b root file system type: ffs # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/raid0a 8.9G 196M 8.3G 2% / kernfs 1.0K 1.0K 0B 100% /kern # swapctl -l Device 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Priority /dev/raid0b 262592 0 262592 0% 0 # raidctl -s raid0 Components: component0: failed /dev/wd1a: optimal No spares. component0 status is: failed. Skipping label. Component label for /dev/wd1a: Row: 0, Column: 1, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2009122601, Mod Counter: 65 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: Yes Root partition: Yes Last configured as: raid0 Parity status: DIRTY Reconstruction is 100% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. 16.3.9. Adding Disk0/wd0 to RAID We will now add Disk0/wd0 as a component of the RAID. This will destroy the original file system structure. On x86, the MBR disklabel will be unaffected (remember we copied wd0's label to wd1 anyway) , therefore there is no need to "zero" Disk0/wd0. However, we need to relabel Disk0/wd0 to have an identical NetBSD disklabel layout as Disk1/wd1. Then we add Disk0/wd0 as "hot-spare" to the RAID set and initiate the parity reconstruction for all RAID devices, effectively bringing Disk0/wd0 into the RAID-1 set and "synching up" both disks. # disklabel -r wd1 > /tmp/disklabel.wd1 # disklabel -R -r wd0 /tmp/disklabel.wd1 As a last-minute sanity check, you might want to use diff(1) to ensure that the disklabels of Disk0/wd0 match Disk1/wd1. You should also backup these files for reference in the event of an emergency. # disklabel -r wd0 > /tmp/disklabel.wd0 # disklabel -r wd1 > /tmp/disklabel.wd1 # diff /tmp/disklabel.wd0 /tmp/disklabel.wd1 # fdisk /dev/rwd0 > /tmp/fdisk.wd0 # fdisk /dev/rwd1 > /tmp/fdisk.wd1 # diff /tmp/fdisk.wd0 /tmp/fdisk.wd1 # mkdir /root/RFbackup # cp -p /tmp/{disklabel,fdisk}* /root/RFbackup Once you are certain, add Disk0/wd0 as a spare component, and start reconstruction: # raidctl -v -a /dev/wd0a raid0 /netbsd: Warning: truncating spare disk /dev/wd0a to 241254528 blocks # raidctl -v -s raid0 Components: component0: failed /dev/wd1a: optimal Spares: /dev/wd0a: spare [...snip...] # raidctl -F component0 raid0 RECON: initiating reconstruction on col 0 -> spare at col 2 11% |**** | ETA: 04:26 \ Depending on the speed of your hardware, the reconstruction time will vary. You may wish to watch it on another terminal: # raidctl -S raid0 Reconstruction is 0% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. Reconstruction status: 17% |****** | ETA: 03:08 - After reconstruction, both disks should be "optimal". # tail -f /var/log/messages raid0: Reconstruction of disk at col 0 completed raid0: Recon time was 1290.625033 seconds, accumulated XOR time was 0 us (0.000000) raid0: (start time 1093407069 sec 145393 usec, end time 1093408359 sec 770426 usec) raid0: Total head-sep stall count was 0 raid0: 305318 recon event waits, 1 recon delays raid0: 1093407069060000 max exec ticks # raidctl -v -s raid0 Components: component0: spared /dev/wd1a: optimal Spares: /dev/wd0a: used_spare [...snip...] When the reconstruction is finished we need to install the boot loader on the Disk0/wd0. On x86, install the boot loader into /dev/rwd0a: # /usr/sbin/installboot -o timeout=15 -v /dev/rwd0a /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2 File system: /dev/rwd0a Primary bootstrap: /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2 Boot options: timeout 15, flags 0, speed 9600, ioaddr 0, console pc On sparc64: # /usr/sbin/installboot -v /dev/rwd0a /usr/mdec/bootblk File system: /dev/rwd0a Primary bootstrap: /usr/mdec/bootblk Bootstrap start sector: 1 Bootstrap byte count: 5140 Writing bootstrap And finally, reboot the machine one last time before proceeding. This is required to migrate Disk0/wd0 from status "used_spare" as "Component0" to state "optimal". Refer to notes in the next section regarding verification of clean parity after each reboot. # shutdown -r now 16.3.10. Testing Boot Blocks At this point, you need to ensure that your system's hardware can properly boot using the boot blocks on either disk. On x86, this is a hardware-dependent process that may be done via your motherboard CMOS/BIOS menu or your controller card's configuration menu. On x86, use the menu system on your machine to set the boot device order / priority to Disk1/wd1 before Disk0/wd0. The examples here depict a generic Award BIOS. Figure 16.6. Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk1/wd1 Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk1/wd1 Save changes and exit. >> NetBSD/i386 BIOS Boot, Revision 5.2 (from NetBSD 5.0.2) >> (builds@b7, Sun Feb 7 00:30:50 UTC 2010) >> Memory: 639/130048 k Press return to boot now, any other key for boot menu booting hd0a:netbsd - starting in 30 You can determine that the BIOS is reading Disk1/wd1 because the timeout of the boot loader is 30 seconds instead of 15. After the reboot, re-enter the BIOS and configure the drive boot order back to the default: Figure 16.7. Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk0/wd0 Award BIOS i386 Boot Disk0/wd0 Save changes and exit. >> NetBSD/x86 BIOS Boot, Revision 5.9 (from NetBSD 6.0) >> Memory: 640/261120 k 1. Boot normally 2. Boot single use 3. Disable ACPI 4. Disable ACPI and SMP 5. Drop to boot prompt Choose an option; RETURN for default; SPACE to stop countdown.Option 1 will be chosen in 0 seconds. Notice how your custom kernel detects controller/bus/drive assignments independent of what the BIOS assigns as the boot disk. This is the expected behavior. On sparc64, use the Sun OpenBoot devalias to confirm that both disks are bootable: Sun Ultra 5/10 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-IIi 400MHz), No Keyboard OpenBoot 3.15, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #nnnnnnnn. Ethernet address 8:0:20:a5:d1:3b, Host ID: nnnnnnnn. ok devalias [...snip...] cdrom /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/cdrom@2,0:f disk /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0 disk3 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@3,0 disk2 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@2,0 disk1 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@1,0 disk0 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0 [...snip...] ok boot disk0 netbsd Initializing Memory [...] Boot device /pci/pci/ide@3/disk@0,0 File and args: netbsd NetBSD IEEE 1275 Bootblock >> NetBSD/sparc64 OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.13 >> (builds@b7.netbsd.org, Wed Jul 29 23:43:42 UTC 2009) loadfile: reading header elf64_exec: Booting [...] symbols @ [....] Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. [...snip...] And the second disk: ok boot disk2 netbsd Initializing Memory [...] Boot device /pci/pci/ide@3/disk@2,0: File and args:netbsd NetBSD IEEE 1275 Bootblock >> NetBSD/sparc64 OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.13 >> (builds@b7.netbsd.org, Wed Jul 29 23:43:42 UTC 2009) loadfile: reading header elf64_exec: Booting [...] symbols @ [....] Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. [...snip...] At each boot, the following should appear in the NetBSD kernel dmesg(8) : Kernelized RAIDframe activated raid0: RAID Level 1 raid0: Components: /dev/wd0a /dev/wd1a raid0: Total Sectors: 19540864 (9541 MB) boot device: raid0 root on raid0a dumps on raid0b root file system type: ffs Once you are certain that both disks are bootable, verify the RAID parity is clean after each reboot: # raidctl -v -s raid0 Components: /dev/wd0a: optimal /dev/wd1a: optimal No spares. [...snip...] Component label for /dev/wd0a: Row: 0, Column: 0, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2009122601, Mod Counter: 67 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: Yes Root partition: Yes Last configured as: raid0 Component label for /dev/wd1a: Row: 0, Column: 1, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2009122601, Mod Counter: 67 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: Yes Root partition: Yes Last configured as: raid0 Parity status: clean Reconstruction is 100% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. Chapter 17. NetBSD Logical Volume Manager (LVM) configuration Table of Contents 17.1. Anatomy of NetBSD Logical Volume Manager 17.2. Install physical media 17.3. Configure Kernel Support 17.4. Disklabel each physical volume member of the LVM 17.5. Create Physical Volumes 17.6. Create Volume Group 17.7. Create Logical Volume 17.8. Example: LVM with Volume groups located on raid1 17.8.1. Loading Device-Mapper driver 17.8.2. Preparing raid1 installation 17.8.3. Creating PV, VG on raid disk 17.8.4. Creating LV's from VG located on raid disk 17.8.5. Integration of LV's in to the system NetBSD LVM allows logical volume management on NetBSD systems, with a well known user interface, which is the same as the Linux LVM2 tools. NetBSD LVM is built on Linux lvm2tools and libdevmapper, together with a BSD-licensed device-mapper kernel driver specially written for NetBSD. The LVM driver allows the user to manage available disk space effectively and efficiently. Disk space from several disks, and partitions, known as "Physical Volumes", can be added to "Volume Groups", which is the pool of available disk space for "Logical Partitions" aka Logical Volumes. Logical Volumes can be grown and shrunk at will using the LVM utilities. The basic building block is the Physical Volume. This is a disk, or a part of a disk, which is used to store data. Physical Volumes are aggregated together to make Volume Groups, or VGs. Typically, Volume Groups are used to aggregate storage for the same functional unit. Typical Volume Groups could thus be named "Audio", "Multimedia" or " Documents". By segregating storage requirements in this functional way, the same type of resilience and redundancy is applied to the whole of the functional unit. The steps required to setup a LVM are as follows: 1. Install physical media 2. Configure kernel support 3. Configure system, install tools 4. Optional step Disklabel each volume member of the LVM 5. Initialize the LVM disk devices 6. Create a volume group from initialized disks 7. Create Logical volume from created Volume group 8. Create a filesystem on the new LV device 9. Mount the LV filesystem This example features a LVM setup on NetBSD/i386. 17.1. Anatomy of NetBSD Logical Volume Manager Figure 17.1. Anatomy of Logical Volume Management Anatomy of Logical Volume Management 1. Volume Group The Volume Group is a disk space pool from which the user creates Logical Volumes and to which Physical Volumes can be added. It is the basic administration unit of the NetBSD LVM implementation. 2. Physical Volume A physical volume is the basic unit in a LVM structure. Every PV consists of small disk space chunks called Physical Extends. Every Volume Group must have at least one PV. A PV can be created on hard disks or hard disk like devices such as raid, ccd, or cgd device. 3. Logical Volume The Logical Volume is a logical partition created from disk space assigned to the Volume Group. LV can be newfsed and mounted as any other pseudo-disk device. Lvm tools use functionality exported by the device-mapper driver in the kernel to create the LV. 4. Physical Extents Each physical volume is divided chunks of disk space. The default size is 4MB. Every LV size is rounded by PE size. The LV is created by mapping Logical Extends in the LV to Physical extends in a Volume group. 5. Logical Extents Each logical volume is split into chunks of disk space, known as logical extents. The extent size is the same for all logical volumes in the volume group. 6. Physical Extents mapping Every LV consists of "LEs" mapped to "PEs" mapped by a target mapping. Currently, the following mappings are defined. + Linear Mapping will linearly assign range of PEs to LEs. For example it can map 100 PEs from PV 1 to LV 1 and another 100 PEs from PV 0. + Stripe Mapping will interleave the chunks of the logical extents across a number of physical volumes. 7. Snapshots A facility provided by LVM is 'snapshots'. Whilst in standard NetBSD, the " fss" driver can be used to provide filesystem snapshots at a filesystem level, the snapshot facility in the LVM allows the administrator to create a logical block device which presents an exact copy of a logical volume, frozen at some point in time. This facility does require that the snapshot be made at a time when the data on the logical volume is in a consistent state. Warning Snapshot feature is not fully implemented in LVM in NetBSD and should not be used in production. 17.2. Install physical media This step is at your own discretion, depending on your platform and the hardware at your disposal. LVM can be used with disklabel partitions or even with standard partitions created with fdisk. From my "dmesg": Disk #1: probe(esp0:0:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd0: 2049 MB, 3992 cyl, 9 head, 116 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4197405 sectors Disk #2 probe(esp0:1:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd1 at scsibus0 target 1 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd1: 2049 MB, 3992 cyl, 9 head, 116 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4197405 sectors Disk #3 probe(esp0:2:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd2 at scsibus0 target 2 lun 0: SCSI2 0/direct fixed sd2: 1005 MB, 1872 cyl, 15 head, 73 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2059140 sectors Disk #4 probe(esp0:3:0): max sync rate 10.00MB/s sd3 at scsibus0 target 3 lun 0: SCSI2 0 sd3: 1005 MB, 1872 cyl, 15 head, 73 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2059140 sectors 17.3. Configure Kernel Support The following kernel configuration directive is needed to provide LVM device support. It is provided as a kernel module, so that no extra modifications need be made to a standard NetBSD kernel. pseudo-device dm If you do not want to rebuild your kernel only because of LVM support you can use dm kernel module. The devmapper kernel module can be loaded on your system. To get the current status of modules in the kernel, the modstat is used: vm1# modstat NAME CLASS SOURCE REFS SIZE REQUIRES cd9660 vfs filesys 0 21442 - coredump misc filesys 1 2814 - exec_elf32 misc filesys 0 6713 coredump exec_script misc filesys 0 1091 - ffs vfs boot 0 163040 - kernfs vfs filesys 0 10201 - ptyfs vfs filesys 0 7852 - When the modload dm is issued, the dm kernel module will be loaded: vm1# modstat NAME CLASS SOURCE REFS SIZE REQUIRES cd9660 vfs filesys 0 21442 - coredump misc filesys 1 2814 - dm misc filesys 0 14448 - exec_elf32 misc filesys 0 6713 coredump exec_script misc filesys 0 1091 - ffs vfs boot 0 163040 - kernfs vfs filesys 0 10201 - ptyfs vfs filesys 0 7852 - 17.4. Disklabel each physical volume member of the LVM Each physical volume disk in LVM will need a special filesystem established. In this example, I will need to disklabel:             /dev/rsd0d             /dev/rsd1d             /dev/rsd2d             /dev/rsd3d      It should be borne in mind that it is possible to use the NetBSD vnd driver to make standard filesystem space appear in the system as a disk device. Note Always remember to disklabel the character device, not the block device, in / dev/r{s,w}d* Note On all platforms except amd64 and i386 where the d partition is used for this, the c slice is symbolic of the entire NetBSD partition and is reserved. You will probably want to remove any pre-existing disklabels on the physical volume disks in the LVM. This can be accomplished in one of two ways with the dd(1) command: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd1d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd3d bs=8k count=1 If your port uses a MBR (Master Boot Record) to partition the disks so that the NetBSD partitions are only part of the overall disk, and other OSs like Windows or Linux use other parts, you can void the MBR and all partitions on disk by using the command: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd1d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd2d bs=8k count=1 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd3d bs=8k count=1 This will make all data on the entire disk inaccessible. Note that the entire disk is slice d on i386 (and some other ports), and c elsewhere (e.g. on sparc). See the "kern.rawpartition" sysctl - "3" means "d", "2" means "c". The default disklabel for the disk will look similar to this: # disklabel -r sd0 [...snip...] bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 63 tracks/cylinder: 16 sectors/cylinder: 1008 cylinders: 207 total sectors: 208896 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 4 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 208896 0 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 207*) d: 208896 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 207*) You will need to create one "slice" on the NetBSD partition of the disk that consumes the entire partition. The slice must begin at least two sectors after end of disklabel part of disk. On i386 it is sector "63". Therefore, the "size" value should be "total sectors" minus 2x "sectors". Edit your disklabel accordingly: # disklabel -e sd0 Note The offset of a slice of type "4.2BSD" must be a multiple of the "sectors" value. Note Be sure to export EDITOR=[path to your favorite editor] before editing the disklabels. Note The slice must be fstype 4.2BSD. Because there will only be one slice on this partition, you can recycle the d slice (normally reserved for symbolic uses). Change your disklabel to the following: 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] d: 4197403 65 4.2BSD # (Cyl. 1 - 4020*) Optionally you can setup a slice other than d to use, simply adjust accordingly below: 3 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg] a: 4197403 65 4.2BSD # (Cyl. 1 - 4020*) c: 4197405 0 unused 1024 8192 # (Cyl. 0 - 4020*) Be sure to write the label when you have completed. Disklabel will object to your disklabel and prompt you to re-edit if it does not pass its sanity checks. 17.5. Create Physical Volumes Once all disks are properly labeled, you will need to create physical volume on them. Every partition/disk added to LVM must have physical volume header on start of it. All informations, like Volume group where Physical volume belongs are stored in this header. # lvm pvcreate /dev/rwd1[ad] Status of physical volume can be viewed with pvdisplay command. # lvm pvdisplay 17.6. Create Volume Group Once all disks are properly labeled with physical volume header, volume group must be created from them. Volume Group is pool of PEs from which administrator can create Logical Volumes "partitions". # lvm vgcreate vg0 /dev/rwd1[ad] * vg0 is name of Volume Group * /dev/rwd1[ad] is Physical Volume Volume group can be later extended/reduced with vgextend and vgreduce commands. These commands adds physical volumes to VG. # lvm vgextend vg0 /dev/rwd1[ad] # lvm vgreduce vg0 /dev/rwd1[ad] Status of Volume group can be viewed with vgdisplay command. # lvm vgdisplay vg0 17.7. Create Logical Volume Once Volume Group was created administrator can create "logical partitions" volumes. # lvm lvcreate -L 20M -n lv1 vg0 * vg0 is name of Volume Group * -L 20M is size of Logical Volume * -n lv1 is name of Logical Volume Logical Volume can be later extended/reduced with lvextend and lvreduce commands. # lvm lvextend -L+20M /dev/vg0/lv1 # lvm lvreduce -L-20M /dev/vg0/lv1 Note To shrink the lv partition, you must first shrink the filesystem using resize_ffs(8) (which as of NetBSD 9.0 does not support shrinking of FFSv2 yet). Status of Logical Volume can be viewed with lvdisplay command. # lvm lvdisplay lv0/lv1 After reboot all functional LV's in defined Volume group can be activated with command # lvm vgchange -a y 17.8. Example: LVM with Volume groups located on raid1 Motivation for using raid 1 disk as physical volume disk for Volume Group is disk reliability. With PV on raid 1 disk it is possible to use Logical Volumes even after disk failure. 17.8.1. Loading Device-Mapper driver Before we can start work with the LVM tools. We have to be sure that NetBSD dm driver was properly compiled into the kernel or loaded as a module. Easiest way how to find if we have dm driver available is run modstat. For more information see Configure Kernel Support chapter. 17.8.2. Preparing raid1 installation Following example raid configuration defined in Raid 1 configuration user will set up clean raid1 disk device. With 2 disks in a mirror mode. Figure 17.2. Example raid 1 configuration # vi /var/tmp/raid0.conf START array 1 2 0 START disks /dev/wd2a /dev/wd1a START layout 128 1 1 1 START queue fifo 100 # raidctl -v -C /var/tmp/raid0.conf raid0 raid0: Component /dev/wd1a being configured at col: 0 Column: 0 Num Columns: 0 Version: 0 Serial Number: 0 Mod Counter: 0 Clean: No Status: 0 Column out of alignment for: /dev/wd2a Number of columns do not match for: /dev/wd2a /dev/wd2a is not clean! raid0: Component /dev/wd1a being configured at col: 1 Column: 0 Num Columns: 0 Version: 0 Serial Number: 0 Mod Counter: 0 Clean: No Status: 0 Column out of alignment for: /dev/wd1a Number of columns do not match for: /dev/wd1a /dev/wd1a is not clean! raid0: There were fatal errors raid0: Fatal errors being ignored. raid0: RAID Level 1 raid0: Components: /dev/wd2a /dev/wd1a raid0: Total Sectors: 19540864 (9541 MB) # raidctl -v -I 2004082401 raid0 # raidctl -v -i raid0 Initiating re-write of parity # tail -1 /var/log/messages raid0: Error re-writing parity! # raidctl -v -s raid0 Components: /dev/wd2a: optimal /dev/wd1a: optimal No spares. Component label for /dev/wd1a: Row: 0, Column: 1, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2004082401, Mod Counter: 7 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: No Root partition: No Last configured as: raid0 Parity status: DIRTY Reconstruction is 100% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. Component label for /dev/wd2a: Row: 0, Column: 1, Num Rows: 1, Num Columns: 2 Version: 2, Serial Number: 2004082401, Mod Counter: 7 Clean: No, Status: 0 sectPerSU: 128, SUsPerPU: 1, SUsPerRU: 1 Queue size: 100, blocksize: 512, numBlocks: 19540864 RAID Level: 1 Autoconfig: No Root partition: No Last configured as: raid0 Parity status: DIRTY Reconstruction is 100% complete. Parity Re-write is 100% complete. Copyback is 100% complete. After setting up raid we need to create disklabel on raid disk. On i386: # disklabel -r -e -I raid0 type: RAID disk: raid label: fictitious flags: bytes/sector: 512 sectors/track: 128 tracks/cylinder: 8 sectors/cylinder: 1024 cylinders: 19082 total sectors: 19540864 rpm: 3600 interleave: 1 trackskew: 0 cylinderskew: 0 headswitch: 0 # microseconds track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds drivedata: 0 # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19540789 65 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 18569) d: 19540864 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19082*) On sparc64: # disklabel -r -e -I raid0 [...snip...] total sectors: 19539968 [...snip...] 2 partitions: # size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs] a: 19540793 65 4.2BSD 0 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 18799) c: 19539968 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 19081) Partitions should be created with offset 65, because sectors < than 65 sector are marked as readonly and therefore can't be rewritten. 17.8.3. Creating PV, VG on raid disk Physical volumes can be created on any disk like device and on any partition on it we can use a or d on sparc64 c partitions. PV will label selected partition as LVM used and add needed information to it. PV is created on char disk device entry. As any other disk operation in the NetBSD. # lvm pvcreate /dev/rraid0a For our example purpose I will create vg00 Volume Group. The first parameter of vgcreate command is Volume Group name and second is PV created on raid. If you later found that VG size is no sufficient and you need more space we will can add it with vgextend command. # lvm vgcreate vg00 /dev/rraid0a # lvm vgextend vg00 /dev/rraid1a Warning If you add non-raid PV to your Volume Group your data are not safe anymore. Therefore you should add raid based PV to VG if you want to keep your data safe. 17.8.4. Creating LV's from VG located on raid disk For our example purpose we will create Logical Volume named lv0. If you later found that LV size is not sufficient for you can add it with lvresize command. Note You must also resize the filesystem, when you resize LV, otherwise you will not see any filesystem change when you mount LV. Warning Be aware that to shrink LV you must first shrink the filesystem (and shrinking of FFSv2 filesystems is not supported yet as of NetBSD 9.0). This means that for FFSv2 filesystems, the -L-* option is not available in NetBSD. # lvm lvcreate -n lv0 -L 2G vg00 # lvm lvresize -L+2G vg00/lv0 All lv device nodes are created in the /dev/vg00/ directory. File system can be create on LV with this command. After filesystem creation LV can be mounted to system. # newfs -O2 /dev/vg00/rlv0 # mount /dev/vg00/lv0 /mnt/ 17.8.5. Integration of LV's in to the system For Proper LVM integration you have to enable lvm rc.d script, which detect LVs during boot and enables them. You have to add entry for Logical Volume to the / etc/fstab file. # cat /etc/rc.conf [snip] lvm=yes # cat /etc/fstab /dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1 /dev/vg00/lv0 /lv0/ ffs rw 1 1 [snip] Chapter 18. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) Table of Contents 18.1. About 18.2. Introduction 18.3. Terms and conventions 18.3.1. Definitions 18.3.2. Usage examples 18.4. PAM Essentials 18.4.1. Facilities and primitives 18.4.2. Modules 18.4.3. Chains and policies 18.4.4. Transactions 18.5. PAM Configuration 18.5.1. PAM policy files 18.5.2. Breakdown of a configuration line 18.5.3. Policies 18.6. PAM modules 18.6.1. Common Modules 18.6.2. NetBSD-specific PAM Modules 18.7. PAM Application Programming 18.8. PAM Module Programming 18.9. Sample PAM Application 18.10. Sample PAM Module 18.11. Sample PAM Conversation Function 18.12. Further Reading 18.1. About This article describes the underlying principles and mechanisms of the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) library, and explains how to configure PAM, how to integrate PAM into applications, and how to write PAM modules. See Section D.3.2, "Networks Associates Technology's license on the PAM article" for the license of this chapter. 18.2. Introduction The Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) library is a generalized API for authentication-related services which allows a system administrator to add new authentication methods simply by installing new PAM modules, and to modify authentication policies by editing configuration files. PAM was defined and developed in 1995 by Vipin Samar and Charlie Lai of Sun Microsystems, and has not changed much since. In 1997, the Open Group published the X/Open Single Sign-on (XSSO) preliminary specification, which standardized the PAM API and added extensions for single (or rather integrated) sign-on. At the time of this writing, this specification has not yet been adopted as a standard. Although this article focuses primarily on FreeBSD 5.x and NetBSD 3.x, which both use OpenPAM, it should be equally applicable to FreeBSD 4.x, which uses Linux-PAM, and other operating systems such as Linux and Solaris?. 18.3. Terms and conventions 18.3.1. Definitions The terminology surrounding PAM is rather confused. Neither Samar and Lai's original paper nor the XSSO specification made any attempt at formally defining terms for the various actors and entities involved in PAM, and the terms that they do use (but do not define) are sometimes misleading and ambiguous. The first attempt at establishing a consistent and unambiguous terminology was a whitepaper written by Andrew G. Morgan (author of Linux-PAM) in 1999. While Morgan's choice of terminology was a huge leap forward, it is in this author's opinion by no means perfect. What follows is an attempt, heavily inspired by Morgan, to define precise and unambiguous terms for all actors and entities involved in PAM. account The set of credentials the applicant is requesting from the arbitrator. applicant The user or entity requesting authentication. arbitrator The user or entity who has the privileges necessary to verify the applicant's credentials and the authority to grant or deny the request. chain A sequence of modules that will be invoked in response to a PAM request. The chain includes information about the order in which to invoke the modules, what arguments to pass to them, and how to interpret the results. client The application responsible for initiating an authentication request on behalf of the applicant and for obtaining the necessary authentication information from him. facility One of the four basic groups of functionality provided by PAM: authentication, account management, session management and authentication token update. module A collection of one or more related functions implementing a particular authentication facility, gathered into a single (normally dynamically loadable) binary file and identified by a single name. policy The complete set of configuration statements describing how to handle PAM requests for a particular service. A policy normally consists of four chains, one for each facility, though some services do not use all four facilities. server The application acting on behalf of the arbitrator to converse with the client, retrieve authentication information, verify the applicant's credentials and grant or deny requests. service A class of servers providing similar or related functionality and requiring similar authentication. PAM policies are defined on a per-service basis, so all servers that claim the same service name will be subject to the same policy. session The context within which service is rendered to the applicant by the server. One of PAM's four facilities, session management, is concerned exclusively with setting up and tearing down this context. token A chunk of information associated with the account, such as a password or passphrase, which the applicant must provide to prove his identity. transaction A sequence of requests from the same applicant to the same instance of the same server, beginning with authentication and session set-up and ending with session tear-down. 18.3.2. Usage examples This section aims to illustrate the meanings of some of the terms defined above by way of a handful of simple examples. 18.3.2.1. Client and server are one This simple example shows alice su(1)'ing to root. $ whoami alice $ ls -l `which su` -r-sr-xr-x 1 root wheel 10744 Dec 6 19:06 /usr/bin/su $ su - Password: xi3kiune # whoami root * The applicant is alice. * The account is root. * The su(1) process is both client and server. * The authentication token is xi3kiune. * The arbitrator is root, which is why su(1) is setuid root. 18.3.2.2. Client and server are separate The example below shows eve try to initiate an ssh(1) connection to login.example.com, ask to log in as bob, and succeed. Bob should have chosen a better password! $ whoami eve $ ssh bob@login.example.com bob@login.example.com's password: god Last login: Thu Oct 11 09:52:57 2001 from 192.168.0.1 NetBSD 3.0 (LOGIN) #1: Thu Mar 10 18:22:36 WET 2005 Welcome to NetBSD! $ * The applicant is eve. * The client is Eve's ssh(1) process. * The server is the sshd(8) process on login.example.com * The account is bob. * The authentication token is god. * Although this is not shown in this example, the arbitrator is root. 18.3.2.3. Sample policy The following is FreeBSD's default policy for sshd: sshd auth required pam_nologin.so no_warn sshd auth required pam_unix.so no_warn try_first_pass sshd account required pam_login_access.so sshd account required pam_unix.so sshd session required pam_lastlog.so no_fail sshd password required pam_permit.so * This policy applies to the sshd service (which is not necessarily restricted to the sshd(8) server.) * auth, account, session and password are facilities. * pam_nologin.so, pam_unix.so, pam_login_access.so, pam_lastlog.so and pam_permit.so are modules. It is clear from this example that pam_unix.so provides at least two facilities (authentication and account management.) There are some differences between FreeBSD and NetBSD PAM policies: * By default, every configuration is done under /etc/pam.d. * If configuration is non-existent, you will not have access to the system, in contrast with FreeBSD that has a default policy of allowing authentication. * For authentication, NetBSD forces at least one required, requisite or binding module to be present. 18.4. PAM Essentials 18.4.1. Facilities and primitives The PAM API offers six different authentication primitives grouped in four facilities, which are described below. auth Authentication. This facility concerns itself with authenticating the applicant and establishing the account credentials. It provides two primitives: o pam_authenticate(3) authenticates the applicant, usually by requesting an authentication token and comparing it with a value stored in a database or obtained from an authentication server. o pam_setcred(3) establishes account credentials such as user ID, group membership and resource limits. account Account management. This facility handles non-authentication-related issues of account availability, such as access restrictions based on the time of day or the server's work load. It provides a single primitive: o pam_acct_mgmt(3) verifies that the requested account is available. session Session management. This facility handles tasks associated with session set-up and tear-down, such as login accounting. It provides two primitives: o pam_open_session(3) performs tasks associated with session set-up: add an entry in the utmp and wtmp databases, start an SSH agent, etc. o pam_close_session(3) performs tasks associated with session tear-down: add an entry in the utmp and wtmp databases, stop the SSH agent, etc. password Password management. This facility is used to change the authentication token associated with an account, either because it has expired or because the user wishes to change it. It provides a single primitive: o pam_chauthtok(3) changes the authentication token, optionally verifying that it is sufficiently hard to guess, has not been used previously, etc. 18.4.2. Modules Modules are a very central concept in PAM; after all, they are the "M" in "PAM" . A PAM module is a self-contained piece of program code that implements the primitives in one or more facilities for one particular mechanism; possible mechanisms for the authentication facility, for instance, include the UNIX® password database, NIS, LDAP and Radius. 18.4.2.1. Module Naming FreeBSD and NetBSD implement each mechanism in a single module, named pam_ mechanism.so (for instance, pam_unix.so for the UNIX® mechanism.) Other implementations sometimes have separate modules for separate facilities, and include the facility name as well as the mechanism name in the module name. To name one example, Solaris? has a pam_dial_auth.so.1 module which is commonly used to authenticate dialup users. Also, almost every module has a man page with the same name, i.e.: pam_unix(8) explains how the pam_unix.so module works. 18.4.2.2. Module Versioning FreeBSD's original PAM implementation, based on Linux-PAM, did not use version numbers for PAM modules. This would commonly cause problems with legacy applications, which might be linked against older versions of the system libraries, as there was no way to load a matching version of the required modules. OpenPAM, on the other hand, looks for modules that have the same version number as the PAM library (currently 2 in FreeBSD and 0 in NetBSD), and only falls back to an unversioned module if no versioned module could be loaded. Thus legacy modules can be provided for legacy applications, while allowing new (or newly built) applications to take advantage of the most recent modules. Although Solaris? PAM modules commonly have a version number, they're not truly versioned, because the number is a part of the module name and must be included in the configuration. 18.4.2.3. Module Path There isn't a common directory for storing PAM modules. Under FreeBSD, they are located at /usr/lib and, under NetBSD, you can find them in /usr/lib/security. 18.4.3. Chains and policies When a server initiates a PAM transaction, the PAM library tries to load a policy for the service specified in the pam_start(3) call. The policy specifies how authentication requests should be processed, and is defined in a configuration file. This is the other central concept in PAM: the possibility for the admin to tune the system security policy (in the wider sense of the word) simply by editing a text file. A policy consists of four chains, one for each of the four PAM facilities. Each chain is a sequence of configuration statements, each specifying a module to invoke, some (optional) parameters to pass to the module, and a control flag that describes how to interpret the return code from the module. Understanding the control flags is essential to understanding PAM configuration files. There are a number of different control flags: binding If the module succeeds and no earlier module in the chain has failed, the chain is immediately terminated and the request is granted. If the module fails, the rest of the chain is executed, but the request is ultimately denied. This control flag was introduced by Sun in Solaris? 9 (SunOS? 5.9), and is also supported by OpenPAM. required If the module succeeds, the rest of the chain is executed, and the request is granted unless some other module fails. If the module fails, the rest of the chain is also executed, but the request is ultimately denied. requisite If the module succeeds, the rest of the chain is executed, and the request is granted unless some other module fails. If the module fails, the chain is immediately terminated and the request is denied. sufficient If the module succeeds and no earlier module in the chain has failed, the chain is immediately terminated and the request is granted. If the module fails, the module is ignored and the rest of the chain is executed. As the semantics of this flag may be somewhat confusing, especially when it is used for the last module in a chain, it is recommended that the binding control flag be used instead if the implementation supports it. optional The module is executed, but its result is ignored. If all modules in a chain are marked optional, all requests will always be granted. When a server invokes one of the six PAM primitives, PAM retrieves the chain for the facility the primitive belongs to, and invokes each of the modules listed in the chain, in the order they are listed, until it reaches the end, or determines that no further processing is necessary (either because a binding or sufficient module succeeded, or because a requisite module failed.) The request is granted if and only if at least one module was invoked, and all non-optional modules succeeded. Note that it is possible, though not very common, to have the same module listed several times in the same chain. For instance, a module that looks up user names and passwords in a directory server could be invoked multiple times with different parameters specifying different directory servers to contact. PAM treat different occurrences of the same module in the same chain as different, unrelated modules. 18.4.4. Transactions The lifecycle of a typical PAM transaction is described below. Note that if any of these steps fails, the server should report a suitable error message to the client and abort the transaction. 1. If necessary, the server obtains arbitrator credentials through a mechanism independent of PAM--most commonly by virtue of having been started by root, or of being setuid root. 2. The server calls pam_start(3) to initialize the PAM library and specify its service name and the target account, and register a suitable conversation function. 3. The server obtains various information relating to the transaction (such as the applicant's user name and the name of the host the client runs on) and submits it to PAM using pam_set_item(3). 4. The server calls pam_authenticate(3) to authenticate the applicant. 5. The server calls pam_acct_mgmt(3) to verify that the requested account is available and valid. If the password is correct but has expired, pam_acct_mgmt(3) will return PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD instead of PAM_SUCCESS. 6. If the previous step returned PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD, the server now calls pam_chauthtok(3) to force the client to change the authentication token for the requested account. 7. Now that the applicant has been properly authenticated, the server calls pam_setcred(3) to establish the credentials of the requested account. It is able to do this because it acts on behalf of the arbitrator, and holds the arbitrator's credentials. 8. Once the correct credentials have been established, the server calls pam_open_session(3) to set up the session. 9. The server now performs whatever service the client requested--for instance, provide the applicant with a shell. 10. Once the server is done serving the client, it calls pam_close_session(3) to tear down the session. 11. Finally, the server calls pam_end(3) to notify the PAM library that it is done and that it can release whatever resources it has allocated in the course of the transaction. 18.5. PAM Configuration 18.5.1. PAM policy files 18.5.1.1. The /etc/pam.conf file The traditional PAM policy file is /etc/pam.conf. This file contains all the PAM policies for your system. Each line of the file describes one step in a chain, as shown below: login auth required pam_nologin.so no_warn The fields are, in order: service name, facility name, control flag, module name, and module arguments. Any additional fields are interpreted as additional module arguments. A separate chain is constructed for each service / facility pair, so while the order in which lines for the same service and facility appear is significant, the order in which the individual services and facilities are listed is not. The examples in the original PAM paper grouped configuration lines by facility, and the Solaris? stock pam.conf still does that, but FreeBSD's stock configuration groups configuration lines by service. Either way is fine; either way makes equal sense. 18.5.1.2. The /etc/pam.d directory OpenPAM and Linux-PAM support an alternate configuration mechanism, which is the preferred mechanism in FreeBSD and NetBSD. In this scheme, each policy is contained in a separate file bearing the name of the service it applies to. These files are stored in /etc/pam.d/. These per-service policy files have only four fields instead of pam.conf's five: the service name field is omitted. Thus, instead of the sample pam.conf line from the previous section, one would have the following line in /etc/pam.d /login: auth required pam_nologin.so no_warn As a consequence of this simplified syntax, it is possible to use the same policy for multiple services by linking each service name to a same policy file. For instance, to use the same policy for the su and sudo services, one could do as follows: # cd /etc/pam.d # ln -s su sudo This works because the service name is determined from the file name rather than specified in the policy file, so the same file can be used for multiple differently-named services. Since each service's policy is stored in a separate file, the pam.d mechanism also makes it very easy to install additional policies for third-party software packages. 18.5.1.3. The policy search order As we have seen above, PAM policies can be found in a number of places. If no configuration file is found for a particular service, the /etc/pam.d/other is used instead. If that file does not exist, /etc/pam.conf is searched for entries matching he specified service or, failing that, the "other" service. It is essential to understand that PAM's configuration system is centered on chains. 18.5.2. Breakdown of a configuration line As explained in the PAM policy files section, each line in /etc/pam.conf consists of four or more fields: the service name, the facility name, the control flag, the module name, and zero or more module arguments. The service name is generally (though not always) the name of the application the statement applies to. If you are unsure, refer to the individual application's documentation to determine what service name it uses. Note that if you use /etc/pam.d/ instead of /etc/pam.conf, the service name is specified by the name of the policy file, and omitted from the actual configuration lines, which then start with the facility name. The facility is one of the four facility keywords described in the Facilities and primitives section. Likewise, the control flag is one of the four keywords described in the Chains and policies section, describing how to interpret the return code from the module. Linux-PAM supports an alternate syntax that lets you specify the action to associate with each possible return code, but this should be avoided as it is non-standard and closely tied in with the way Linux-PAM dispatches service calls (which differs greatly from the way Solaris? and OpenPAM do it.) Unsurprisingly, OpenPAM does not support this syntax. 18.5.3. Policies To configure PAM correctly, it is essential to understand how policies are interpreted. When an application calls pam_start(3), the PAM library loads the policy for the specified service and constructs four module chains (one for each facility.) If one or more of these chains are empty, the corresponding chains from the policy for the other service are substituted. When the application later calls one of the six PAM primitives, the PAM library retrieves the chain for the corresponding facility and calls the appropriate service function in each module listed in the chain, in the order in which they were listed in the configuration. After each call to a service function, the module type and the error code returned by the service function are used to determine what happens next. With a few exceptions, which we discuss below, the following table applies: Table 18.1. PAM chain execution summary +-----------------------------------------------------------+ |   | PAM_SUCCESS |PAM_IGNORE| other | |----------+-----------------+----------+-------------------| |binding |if (!fail) break;|- |fail = true; | |----------+-----------------+----------+-------------------| |required |- |- |fail = true; | |----------+-----------------+----------+-------------------| |requisite |- |- |fail = true; break;| |----------+-----------------+----------+-------------------| |sufficient|if (!fail) break;|- |- | |----------+-----------------+----------+-------------------| |optional |- |- |- | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ If fail is true at the end of a chain, or when a "break" is reached, the dispatcher returns the error code returned by the first module that failed. Otherwise, it returns PAM_SUCCESS. The first exception of note is that the error code PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD is treated like a success, except that if no module failed, and at least one module returned PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD, the dispatcher will return PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD. The second exception is that pam_setcred(3) treats binding and sufficient modules as if they were required. The third and final exception is that pam_chauthtok(3) runs the entire chain twice (once for preliminary checks and once to actually set the password), and in the preliminary phase it treats binding and sufficient modules as if they were required. 18.6. PAM modules 18.6.1. Common Modules 18.6.1.1. pam_deny(8) The pam_deny(8) module is one of the simplest modules available; it responds to any request with PAM_AUTH_ERR. It is useful for quickly disabling a service (add it to the top of every chain), or for terminating chains of sufficient modules. 18.6.1.2. pam_echo(8) The pam_echo(8) module simply passes its arguments to the conversation function as a PAM_TEXT_INFO message. It is mostly useful for debugging, but can also serve to display messages such as "Unauthorized access will be prosecuted" before starting the authentication procedure. 18.6.1.3. pam_exec(8) The pam_exec(8) module takes its first argument to be the name of a program to execute, and the remaining arguments are passed to that program as command-line arguments. One possible application is to use it to run a program at login time which mounts the user's home directory. 18.6.1.4. pam_ftpusers(8) The pam_ftpusers(8) module successes if and only if the user is listed in /etc/ ftpusers. Currently, in NetBSD, this module doesn't understand the extended syntax of ftpd(8), but this will be fixed in the future. 18.6.1.5. pam_group(8) The pam_group(8) module accepts or rejects applicants on the basis of their membership in a particular file group (normally wheel for su(1)). It is primarily intended for maintaining the traditional behaviour of BSD su(1), but has many other uses, such as excluding certain groups of users from a particular service. In NetBSD, there is an argument called authenticate in which the user is asked to authenticate using his own password. 18.6.1.6. pam_guest(8) The pam_guest(8) module allows guest logins using fixed login names. Various requirements can be placed on the password, but the default behaviour is to allow any password as long as the login name is that of a guest account. The pam_guest(8) module can easily be used to implement anonymous FTP logins. 18.6.1.7. pam_krb5(8) The pam_krb5(8) module provides functions to verify the identity of a user and to set user specific credentials using Kerberos 5. It prompts the user for a password and obtains a new Kerberos TGT for the principal. The TGT is verified by obtaining a service ticket for the local host. The newly acquired credentials are stored in a credential cache and the environment variable KRB5CCNAME is set appropriately. The credentials cache should be destroyed by the user at logout with kdestroy(1). 18.6.1.8. pam_ksu(8) The pam_ksu(8) module provides only authentication services for Kerberos 5 to determine whether or not the applicant is authorized to obtain the privileges of the target account. 18.6.1.9. pam_lastlog(8) The pam_lastlog(8) module provides only session management services. It records the session in utmp(5), utmpx(5), wtmp(5), wtmpx(5), lastlog(5) and lastlogx(5) databases. 18.6.1.10. pam_login_access(8) The pam_login_access(8) module provides an implementation of the account management primitive which enforces the login restrictions specified in the login.access(5) table. 18.6.1.11. pam_nologin(8) The pam_nologin(8) module refuses non-root logins when /var/run/nologin exists. This file is normally created by shutdown(8) when less than five minutes remain until the scheduled shutdown time. 18.6.1.12. pam_permit(8) The pam_permit(8) module is one of the simplest modules available; it responds to any request with PAM_SUCCESS. It is useful as a placeholder for services where one or more chains would otherwise be empty. 18.6.1.13. pam_radius(8) The pam_radius(8) module provides authentication services based upon the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service) protocol. 18.6.1.14. pam_rhosts(8) The pam_rhosts(8) module provides only authentication services. It reports success if and only if the target user's ID is not 0 and the remote host and user are listed in /etc/hosts.equiv or in the target user's ~/.rhosts. 18.6.1.15. pam_rootok(8) The pam_rootok(8) module reports success if and only if the real user id of the process calling it (which is assumed to be run by the applicant) is 0. This is useful for non-networked services such as su(1) or passwd(1), to which the root should have automatic access. 18.6.1.16. pam_securetty(8) The pam_securetty(8) module provides only account services. It is used when the applicant is attempting to authenticate as superuser, and the process is attached to an insecure TTY. 18.6.1.17. pam_self(8) The pam_self(8) module reports success if and only if the names of the applicant matches that of the target account. It is most useful for non-networked services such as su(1), where the identity of the applicant can be easily verified. 18.6.1.18. pam_ssh(8) The pam_ssh(8) module provides both authentication and session services. The authentication service allows users who have passphrase-protected SSH secret keys in their ~/.ssh directory to authenticate themselves by typing their passphrase. The session service starts ssh-agent(1) and preloads it with the keys that were decrypted in the authentication phase. This feature is particularly useful for local logins, whether in X (using xdm(1) or another PAM-aware X login manager) or at the console. This module implements what is fundamentally a password authentication scheme. Care should be taken to only use this module over a secure session (secure TTY, encrypted session, etc.), otherwise the user's SSH passphrase could be compromised. Additional consideration should be given to the use of pam_ssh(8). Users often assume that file permissions are sufficient to protect their SSH keys, and thus use weak or no passphrases. Since the system administrator has no effective means of enforcing SSH passphrase quality, this has the potential to expose the system to security risks. 18.6.1.19. pam_unix(8) The pam_unix(8) module implements traditional UNIX® password authentication, using getpwnam(3) under FreeBSD or getpwnam_r(3) under NetBSD to obtain the target account's password and compare it with the one provided by the applicant. It also provides account management services (enforcing account and password expiration times) and password-changing services. This is probably the single most useful module, as the great majority of admins will want to maintain historical behaviour for at least some services. 18.6.2. NetBSD-specific PAM Modules 18.6.2.1. pam_skey(8) The pam_skey(8) module implements S/Key One Time Password (OTP) authentication methods, using the /etc/skeykeys database. 18.7. PAM Application Programming This section has not yet been written. 18.8. PAM Module Programming This section has not yet been written. 18.9. Sample PAM Application The following is a minimal implementation of su(1) using PAM. Note that it uses the OpenPAM-specific openpam_ttyconv(3) conversation function, which is prototyped in security/openpam.h. If you wish build this application on a system with a different PAM library, you will have to provide your own conversation function. A robust conversation function is surprisingly difficult to implement; the one presented in the Sample PAM Conversation Function sub-chapter is a good starting point, but should not be used in real-world applications. #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include /* for openpam_ttyconv() */ extern char **environ; static pam_handle_t *pamh; static struct pam_conv pamc; static void usage(void) { fprintf(stderr, "Usage: su [login [args]]\n"); exit(1); } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { char hostname[MAXHOSTNAMELEN]; const char *user, *tty; char **args, **pam_envlist, **pam_env; struct passwd *pwd; int o, pam_err, status; pid_t pid; while ((o = getopt(argc, argv, "h")) != -1) switch (o) { case 'h': default: usage(); } argc -= optind; argv += optind; if (argc > 0) { user = *argv; --argc; ++argv; } else { user = "root"; } /* initialize PAM */ pamc.conv = &openpam_ttyconv; pam_start("su", user, &pamc, &pamh); /* set some items */ gethostname(hostname, sizeof(hostname)); if ((pam_err = pam_set_item(pamh, PAM_RHOST, hostname)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; user = getlogin(); if ((pam_err = pam_set_item(pamh, PAM_RUSER, user)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; tty = ttyname(STDERR_FILENO); if ((pam_err = pam_set_item(pamh, PAM_TTY, tty)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; /* authenticate the applicant */ if ((pam_err = pam_authenticate(pamh, 0)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; if ((pam_err = pam_acct_mgmt(pamh, 0)) == PAM_NEW_AUTHTOK_REQD) pam_err = pam_chauthtok(pamh, PAM_CHANGE_EXPIRED_AUTHTOK); if (pam_err != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; /* establish the requested credentials */ if ((pam_err = pam_setcred(pamh, PAM_ESTABLISH_CRED)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; /* authentication succeeded; open a session */ if ((pam_err = pam_open_session(pamh, 0)) != PAM_SUCCESS) goto pamerr; /* get mapped user name; PAM may have changed it */ pam_err = pam_get_item(pamh, PAM_USER, (const void **)&user); if (pam_err != PAM_SUCCESS || (pwd = getpwnam(user)) == NULL) goto pamerr; /* export PAM environment */ if ((pam_envlist = pam_getenvlist(pamh)) != NULL) { for (pam_env = pam_envlist; *pam_env != NULL; ++pam_env) { putenv(*pam_env); free(*pam_env); } free(pam_envlist); } /* build argument list */ if ((args = calloc(argc + 2, sizeof *args)) == NULL) { warn("calloc()"); goto err; } *args = pwd->pw_shell; memcpy(args + 1, argv, argc * sizeof *args); /* fork and exec */ switch ((pid = fork())) { case -1: warn("fork()"); goto err; case 0: /* child: give up privs and start a shell */ /* set uid and groups */ if (initgroups(pwd->pw_name, pwd->pw_gid) == -1) { warn("initgroups()"); _exit(1); } if (setgid(pwd->pw_gid) == -1) { warn("setgid()"); _exit(1); } if (setuid(pwd->pw_uid) == -1) { warn("setuid()"); _exit(1); } execve(*args, args, environ); warn("execve()"); _exit(1); default: /* parent: wait for child to exit */ waitpid(pid, &status, 0); /* close the session and release PAM resources */ pam_err = pam_close_session(pamh, 0); pam_end(pamh, pam_err); exit(WEXITSTATUS(status)); } pamerr: fprintf(stderr, "Sorry\n"); err: pam_end(pamh, pam_err); exit(1); } 18.10. Sample PAM Module The following is a minimal implementation of pam_unix(8), offering only authentication services. It should build and run with most PAM implementations, but takes advantage of OpenPAM extensions if available: note the use of pam_get_authtok(3), which enormously simplifies prompting the user for a password. #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #ifndef _OPENPAM static char password_prompt[] = "Password:"; #endif #ifndef PAM_EXTERN #define PAM_EXTERN #endif PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_authenticate(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { #ifndef _OPENPAM const void *ptr; const struct pam_conv *conv; struct pam_message msg; const struct pam_message *msgp; struct pam_response *resp; #endif struct passwd *pwd; const char *user; char *crypt_password, *password; int pam_err, retry; /* identify user */ if ((pam_err = pam_get_user(pamh, &user, NULL)) != PAM_SUCCESS) return (pam_err); if ((pwd = getpwnam(user)) == NULL) return (PAM_USER_UNKNOWN); /* get password */ #ifndef _OPENPAM pam_err = pam_get_item(pamh, PAM_CONV, &ptr); if (pam_err != PAM_SUCCESS) return (PAM_SYSTEM_ERR); conv = ptr; msg.msg_style = PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_OFF; msg.msg = password_prompt; msgp = &msg; #endif password = NULL; for (retry = 0; retry < 3; ++retry) { #ifdef _OPENPAM pam_err = pam_get_authtok(pamh, PAM_AUTHTOK, (const char **)&password, NULL); #else resp = NULL; pam_err = (*conv->conv)(1, &msgp, &resp, conv->appdata_ptr); if (resp != NULL) { if (pam_err == PAM_SUCCESS) password = resp->resp; else free(resp->resp); free(resp); } #endif if (pam_err == PAM_SUCCESS) break; } if (pam_err == PAM_CONV_ERR) return (pam_err); if (pam_err != PAM_SUCCESS) return (PAM_AUTH_ERR); /* compare passwords */ if ((!pwd->pw_passwd[0] && (flags & PAM_DISALLOW_NULL_AUTHTOK)) || (crypt_password = crypt(password, pwd->pw_passwd)) == NULL || strcmp(crypt_password, pwd->pw_passwd) != 0) pam_err = PAM_AUTH_ERR; else pam_err = PAM_SUCCESS; #ifndef _OPENPAM free(password); #endif return (pam_err); } PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_setcred(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { return (PAM_SUCCESS); } PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_acct_mgmt(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { return (PAM_SUCCESS); } PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_open_session(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { return (PAM_SUCCESS); } PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_close_session(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { return (PAM_SUCCESS); } PAM_EXTERN int pam_sm_chauthtok(pam_handle_t *pamh, int flags, int argc, const char *argv[]) { return (PAM_SERVICE_ERR); } #ifdef PAM_MODULE_ENTRY PAM_MODULE_ENTRY("pam_unix"); #endif 18.11. Sample PAM Conversation Function The conversation function presented below is a greatly simplified version of OpenPAM's openpam_ttyconv(3). It is fully functional, and should give the reader a good idea of how a conversation function should behave, but it is far too simple for real-world use. Even if you're not using OpenPAM, feel free to download the source code and adapt openpam_ttyconv(3) to your uses; we believe it to be as robust as a tty-oriented conversation function can reasonably get. #include #include #include #include #include int converse(int n, const struct pam_message **msg, struct pam_response **resp, void *data) { struct pam_response *aresp; char buf[PAM_MAX_RESP_SIZE]; int i; data = data; if (n <= 0 || n > PAM_MAX_NUM_MSG) return (PAM_CONV_ERR); if ((aresp = calloc(n, sizeof *aresp)) == NULL) return (PAM_BUF_ERR); for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) { aresp[i].resp_retcode = 0; aresp[i].resp = NULL; switch (msg[i]->msg_style) { case PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_OFF: aresp[i].resp = strdup(getpass(msg[i]->msg)); if (aresp[i].resp == NULL) goto fail; break; case PAM_PROMPT_ECHO_ON: fputs(msg[i]->msg, stderr); if (fgets(buf, sizeof buf, stdin) == NULL) goto fail; aresp[i].resp = strdup(buf); if (aresp[i].resp == NULL) goto fail; break; case PAM_ERROR_MSG: fputs(msg[i]->msg, stderr); if (strlen(msg[i]->msg) > 0 && msg[i]->msg[strlen(msg[i]->msg) - 1] != '\n') fputc('\n', stderr); break; case PAM_TEXT_INFO: fputs(msg[i]->msg, stdout); if (strlen(msg[i]->msg) > 0 && msg[i]->msg[strlen(msg[i]->msg) - 1] != '\n') fputc('\n', stdout); break; default: goto fail; } } *resp = aresp; return (PAM_SUCCESS); fail: for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) { if (aresp[i].resp != NULL) { memset(aresp[i].resp, 0, strlen(aresp[i].resp)); free(aresp[i].resp); } } memset(aresp, 0, n * sizeof *aresp); *resp = NULL; return (PAM_CONV_ERR); } 18.12. Further Reading Bibliography Papers [sun-pam] Making Login Services Independent of Authentication Technologies. Vipin Samar and Charlie Lai. Sun Microsystems. [opengroup-singlesignon] X/Open Single Sign-on Preliminary Specification. The Open Group. 1-85912-144-6. June 1997. [kernelorg-pamdraft] Pluggable Authentication Modules. Andrew G. Morgan. October 6, 1999. User Manuals [sun-pamadmin] PAM Administration. Sun Microsystems. Related Web pages [openpam-website] OpenPAM homepage. Dag-Erling Smørgrav. ThinkSec AS. [linuxpam-website] Linux-PAM homepage. Andrew G. Morgan. [solarispam-website] Solaris PAM homepage. Sun Microsystems. Chapter 19. Tuning NetBSD Table of Contents 19.1. Introduction 19.1.1. Overview 19.2. Tuning Considerations 19.2.1. General System Configuration 19.2.2. System Services 19.2.3. The NetBSD Kernel 19.3. Visual Monitoring Tools 19.3.1. The top Process Monitor 19.3.2. The sysstat utility 19.4. Monitoring Tools 19.4.1. fstat 19.4.2. iostat 19.4.3. ps 19.4.4. vmstat 19.5. Network Tools 19.5.1. ping 19.5.2. traceroute 19.5.3. netstat 19.5.4. tcpdump 19.6. Accounting 19.6.1. Accounting 19.6.2. Reading Accounting Information 19.6.3. How to Put Accounting to Use 19.7. Kernel Profiling 19.7.1. Getting Started 19.7.2. Interpretation of kgmon Output 19.7.3. Putting it to Use 19.7.4. Summary 19.8. System Tuning 19.8.1. Using sysctl 19.8.2. tmpfs & mfs 19.8.3. Journaling 19.8.4. LFS 19.9. Kernel Tuning 19.9.1. Preparing to Recompile a Kernel 19.9.2. Configuring the Kernel 19.9.3. Building the New Kernel 19.9.4. Shrinking the NetBSD kernel 19.1. Introduction 19.1.1. Overview This section covers a variety of performance tuning topics. It attempts to span tuning from the perspective of the system administrator to systems programmer. The art of performance tuning itself is very old. To tune something means to make it operate more efficiently, whether one is referring to a NetBSD based technical server or a vacuum cleaner, the goal is to improve something, whether that be the way something is done, how it works or how it is put together. 19.1.1.1. What is Performance Tuning? A view from 10,000 feet pretty much dictates that everything we do is task oriented, this pertains to a NetBSD system as well. When the system boots, it automatically begins to perform a variety of tasks. When a user logs in, they usually have a wide variety of tasks they have to accomplish. In the scope of these documents, however, performance tuning strictly means to improve how efficient a NetBSD system performs. The most common thought that crops into someone's mind when they think "tuning" is some sort of speed increase or decreasing the size of the kernel - while those are ways to improve performance, they are not the only ends an administrator may have to take for increasing efficiency. For our purposes, performance tuning means this: To make a NetBSD system operate in an optimum state. Which could mean a variety of things, not necessarily speed enhancements. A good example of this is filesystem formatting parameters, on a system that has a lot of small files (say like a source repository) an administrator may need to increase the number of inodes by making their size smaller (say down to 1024k) and then increasing the amount of inodes. In this case the number of inodes was increased, however, it keeps the administrator from getting those nasty out of inodes messages, which ultimately makes the system more efficient. Tuning normally revolves around finding and eliminating bottlenecks. Most of the time, such bottlenecks are spurious, for example, a release of Mozilla that does not quite handle java applets too well can cause Mozilla to start crunching the CPU, especially applets that are not done well. Occasions when processes seem to spin off into nowhere and eat CPU are almost always resolved with a kill. There are instances, however, when resolving bottlenecks takes a lot longer, for example, say an rsynced server is just getting larger and larger. Slowly, performance begins to fade and the administrator may have to take some sort of action to speed things up, however, the situation is relative to say an emergency like an instantly spiked CPU. 19.1.1.2. When does one tune? Many NetBSD users rarely have to tune a system. The GENERIC kernel may run just fine and the layout/configuration of the system may do the job as well. By the same token, as a pragma it is always good to know how to tune a system. Most often tuning comes as a result of a sudden bottleneck issue (which may occur randomly) or a gradual loss of performance. It does happen in a sense to everyone at some point, one process that is eating the CPU is a bottleneck as much as a gradual increase in paging. So, the question should not be when to tune so much as when to learn to tune. One last time to tune is if you can tune in a preventive manner (and you think you might need to) then do it. One example of this was on a system that needed to be able to reboot quickly. Instead of waiting, I did everything I could to trim the kernel and make sure there was absolutely nothing running that was not needed, I even removed drivers that did have devices, but were never used (lp). The result was reducing reboot time by nearly two-thirds. In the long run, it was a smart move to tune it before it became an issue. 19.1.1.3. What these Documents Will Not Cover Before I wrap up the introduction, I think it is important to note what these documents will not cover. This guide will pertain only to the core NetBSD system. In other words, it will not cover tuning a web server's configuration to make it run better; however, it might mention how to tune NetBSD to run better as a web server. The logic behind this is simple: web servers, database software, etc. are third party and almost limitless. I could easily get mired down in details that do not apply to the NetBSD system. Almost all third party software have their own documentation about tuning anyhow. 19.1.1.4. How Examples are Laid Out Since there is ample man page documentation, only used options and arguments with examples are discussed. In some cases, material is truncated for brevity and not thoroughly discussed because, quite simply, there is too much. For example, every single device driver entry in the kernel will not be discussed, however, an example of determining whether or not a given system needs one will be. Nothing in this Guide is concrete, tuning and performance are very subjective, instead, it is a guide for the reader to learn what some of the tools available to them can do. 19.2. Tuning Considerations Tuning a system is not really too difficult when pro-active tuning is the approach. This document approaches tuning from a "before it comes up" approach. While tuning in spare time is considerably easier versus say, a server that is almost completely bogged down to 0.1% idle time, there are still a few things that should be mulled over about tuning before actually doing it, hopefully, before a system is even installed. 19.2.1. General System Configuration Of course, how the system is setup makes a big difference. Sometimes small items can be overlooked which may in fact cause some sort of long term performance problem. 19.2.1.1. Filesystems and Disks How the filesystem is laid out relative to disk drives is very important. On hardware RAID systems, it is not such a big deal, but, many NetBSD users specifically use NetBSD on older hardware where hardware RAID simply is not an option. The idea of / being close to the first drive is a good one, but for example if there are several drives to choose from that will be the first one, is the best performing the one that / will be on? On a related note, is it wise to split off /usr? Will the system see heavy usage say in /usr/pkgsrc? It might make sense to slap a fast drive in and mount it under /usr/pkgsrc, or it might not. Like all things in performance tuning, this is subjective. 19.2.1.2. Swap Configuration There are three schools of thought on swap size and about fifty on using split swap files with prioritizing and how that should be done. In the swap size arena, the vendor schools (at least most commercial ones) usually have their own formulas per OS. As an example, on a particular version of HP-UX with a particular version of Oracle the formula was: 2.5 GB * Number_of_processor Well, that all really depends on what type of usage the database is having and how large it is, for instance if it is so large that it must be distributed, that formula does not fit well. The next school of thought about swap sizing is sort of strange but makes some sense, it says, if possible, get a reference amount of memory used by the system. It goes something like this: 1. Startup a machine and estimate total memory needs by running everything that may ever be needed at once. Databases, web servers .... whatever. Total up the amount. 2. Add a few MB for padding. 3. Subtract the amount of physical RAM from this total. If the amount leftover is 3 times the size of physical RAM, consider getting more RAM. The problem, of course, is figuring out what is needed and how much space it will take. There is also another flaw in this method, some programs do not behave well. A glaring example of misbehaved software is web browsers. On certain versions of Netscape, when something went wrong it had a tendency to runaway and eat swap space. So, the more spare space available, the more time to kill it. Last and not least is the tried and true PHYSICAL_RAM * 2 method. On modern machines and even older ones (with limited purpose of course) this seems to work best. All in all, it is hard to tell when swapping will start. Even on small 16MB RAM machines (and less) NetBSD has always worked well for most people until misbehaving software is running. 19.2.2. System Services On servers, system services have a large impact. Getting them to run at their best almost always requires some sort of network level change or a fundamental speed increase in the underlying system (which of course is what this is all about). There are instances when some simple solutions can improve services. One example, an ftp server is becoming slower and a new release of the ftp server that is shipped with the system comes out that, just happens to run faster. By upgrading the ftp software, a performance boost is accomplished. Another good example where services are concerned is the age old question: "To use inetd or not to use inetd?" A great service example is pop3. Pop3 connections can conceivably clog up inetd. While the pop3 service itself starts to degrade slowly, other services that are multiplexed through inetd will also degrade (in some case more than pop3). Setting up pop3 to run outside of inetd and on its own may help. 19.2.3. The NetBSD Kernel The NetBSD kernel obviously plays a key role in how well a system performs, while rebuilding and tuning the kernel is covered later in the text, it is worth discussing in the local context from a high level. Tuning the NetBSD kernel really involves three main areas: 1. removing unrequired drivers 2. configuring options 3. system settings 19.2.3.1. Removing Unrequired Drivers Taking drivers out of the kernel that are not needed achieves several results; first, the system boots faster since the kernel is smaller, second again since the kernel is smaller, more memory is free to users and processes and third, the kernel tends to respond quicker. 19.2.3.2. Configuring Options Configuring options such as enabling/disabling certain subsystems, specific hardware and filesystems can also improve performance pretty much the same way removing unrequired drivers does. A very simple example of this is a FTP server that only hosts ftp files - nothing else. On this particular server there is no need to have anything but native filesystem support and perhaps a few options to help speed things along. Why would it ever need NTFS support for example? Besides, if it did, support for NTFS could be added at some later time. In an opposite case, a workstation may need to support a lot of different filesystem types to share and access files. 19.2.3.3. System Settings System wide settings are controlled by the kernel, a few examples are filesystem settings, network settings and core kernel settings such as the maximum number of processes. Almost all system settings can be at least looked at or modified via the sysctl facility. Examples using the sysctl facility are given later on. 19.3. Visual Monitoring Tools NetBSD ships a variety of performance monitoring tools with the system. Most of these tools are common on all UNIX systems. In this section some example usage of the tools is given with interpretation of the output. 19.3.1. The top Process Monitor The top monitor does exactly what it says: it displays the CPU hogs on the system. To run the monitor, simply type top at the prompt. Without any arguments, it should look like: load averages: 0.09, 0.12, 0.08 20:23:41 21 processes: 20 sleeping, 1 on processor CPU states: 0.0% user, 0.0% nice, 0.0% system, 0.0% interrupt, 100% idle Memory: 15M Act, 1104K Inact, 208K Wired, 22M Free, 129M Swap free PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU CPU COMMAND 13663 root 2 0 1552K 1836K sleep 0:08 0.00% 0.00% httpd 127 root 10 0 129M 4464K sleep 0:01 0.00% 0.00% mount_mfs 22591 root 2 0 388K 1156K sleep 0:01 0.00% 0.00% sshd 108 root 2 0 132K 472K sleep 0:01 0.00% 0.00% syslogd 22597 jrf 28 0 156K 616K onproc 0:00 0.00% 0.00% top 22592 jrf 18 0 828K 1128K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% tcsh 203 root 10 0 220K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% cron 1 root 10 0 312K 192K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% init 205 root 3 0 48K 432K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 206 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 208 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 207 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 13667 nobody 2 0 1660K 1508K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% httpd 9926 root 2 0 336K 588K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% sshd 200 root 2 0 76K 456K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% inetd 182 root 2 0 92K 436K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% portsentry 180 root 2 0 92K 436K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% portsentry 13666 nobody -4 0 1600K 1260K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% httpd The top utility is great for finding CPU hogs, runaway processes or groups of processes that may be causing problems. The output shown above indicates that this particular system is in good health. Now, the next display should show some very different results: load averages: 0.34, 0.16, 0.13 21:13:47 25 processes: 24 sleeping, 1 on processor CPU states: 0.5% user, 0.0% nice, 9.0% system, 1.0% interrupt, 89.6% idle Memory: 20M Act, 1712K Inact, 240K Wired, 30M Free, 129M Swap free PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU CPU COMMAND 5304 jrf -5 0 56K 336K sleep 0:04 66.07% 19.53% bonnie 5294 root 2 0 412K 1176K sleep 0:02 1.01% 0.93% sshd 108 root 2 0 132K 472K sleep 1:23 0.00% 0.00% syslogd 187 root 2 0 1552K 1824K sleep 0:07 0.00% 0.00% httpd 5288 root 2 0 412K 1176K sleep 0:02 0.00% 0.00% sshd 5302 jrf 28 0 160K 620K onproc 0:00 0.00% 0.00% top 5295 jrf 18 0 828K 1116K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% tcsh 5289 jrf 18 0 828K 1112K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% tcsh 127 root 10 0 129M 8388K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% mount_mfs 204 root 10 0 220K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% cron 1 root 10 0 312K 192K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% init 208 root 3 0 48K 432K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 210 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 209 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 211 root 3 0 48K 424K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% getty 217 nobody 2 0 1616K 1272K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% httpd 184 root 2 0 336K 580K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% sshd 201 root 2 0 76K 456K sleep 0:00 0.00% 0.00% inetd At first, it should seem rather obvious which process is hogging the system, however, what is interesting in this case is why. The bonnie program is a disk benchmark tool which can write large files in a variety of sizes and ways. What the previous output indicates is only that the bonnie program is a CPU hog, but not why. 19.3.1.1. Other Neat Things About Top A careful examination of the manual page top(1) shows that there is a lot more that can be done with top, for example, processes can have their priority changed and killed. Additionally, filters can be set for looking at processes. 19.3.2. The sysstat utility As the man page sysstat(1) indicates, the sysstat utility shows a variety of system statistics using the curses library. While it is running the screen is shown in two parts, the upper window shows the current load average while the lower screen depends on user commands. The exception to the split window view is when vmstat display is on which takes up the whole screen. Following is what sysstat looks like on a fairly idle system with no arguments given when it was invoked: /0 /1 /2 /3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 Load Average | /0 /10 /20 /30 /40 /50 /60 /70 /80 /90 /100 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Basically a lot of dead time there, so now have a look with some arguments provided, in this case, sysstat inet.tcp which looks like this: /0 /1 /2 /3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 Load Average | 0 connections initiated 19 total TCP packets sent 0 connections accepted 11 data 0 connections established 0 data (retransmit) 8 ack-only 0 connections dropped 0 window probes 0 in embryonic state 0 window updates 0 on retransmit timeout 0 urgent data only 0 by keepalive 0 control 0 by persist 29 total TCP packets received 11 potential rtt updates 17 in sequence 11 successful rtt updates 0 completely duplicate 9 delayed acks sent 0 with some duplicate data 0 retransmit timeouts 4 out of order 0 persist timeouts 0 duplicate acks 0 keepalive probes 11 acks 0 keepalive timeouts 0 window probes 0 window updates Now that is informative. The first poll is accumulative, so it is possible to see quite a lot of information in the output when sysstat is invoked. Now, while that may be interesting, how about a look at the buffer cache with sysstat bufcache: /0 /1 /2 /3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 Load Average There are 1642 buffers using 6568 kBytes of memory. File System Bufs used % kB in use % Bufsize kB % Util % / 877 53 6171 93 6516 99 94 /var/tmp 5 0 17 0 28 0 60 Total: 882 53 6188 94 6544 99 Again, a pretty boring system, but great information to have available. While this is all nice to look at, it is time to put a false load on the system to see how sysstat can be used as a performance monitoring tool. As with top, bonnie++ will be used to put a high load on the I/O subsystems and a little on the CPU. The bufcache will be looked at again to see of there are any noticeable differences: /0 /1 /2 /3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 /10 Load Average ||| There are 1642 buffers using 6568 kBytes of memory. File System Bufs used % kB in use % Bufsize kB % Util % / 811 49 6422 97 6444 98 99 Total: 811 49 6422 97 6444 98 First, notice that the load average shot up, this is to be expected of course, then, while most of the numbers are close, notice that utilization is at 99%. Throughout the time that bonnie++ was running the utilization percentage remained at 99, this of course makes sense, however, in a real troubleshooting situation, it could be indicative of a process doing heavy I/O on one particular file or filesystem. 19.4. Monitoring Tools In addition to screen oriented monitors and tools, the NetBSD system also ships with a set of command line oriented tools. Many of the tools that ship with a NetBSD system can be found on other UNIX and UNIX-like systems. 19.4.1. fstat The fstat(1) utility reports the status of open files on the system, while it is not what many administrators consider a performance monitor, it can help find out if a particular user or process is using an inordinate amount of files, generating large files and similar information. Following is a sample of some fstat output: USER CMD PID FD MOUNT INUM MODE SZ|DV R/W jrf tcsh 21607 wd / 29772 drwxr-xr-x 512 r jrf tcsh 21607 3* unix stream c057acc0<-> c0553280 jrf tcsh 21607 4* unix stream c0553280 <-> c057acc0 root sshd 21597 wd / 2 drwxr-xr-x 512 r root sshd 21597 0 / 11921 crw-rw-rw- null rw nobody httpd 5032 wd / 2 drwxr-xr-x 512 r nobody httpd 5032 0 / 11921 crw-rw-rw- null r nobody httpd 5032 1 / 11921 crw-rw-rw- null w nobody httpd 5032 2 / 15890 -rw-r--r-- 353533 rw ... The fields are pretty self explanatory, again, this tool while not as performance oriented as others, can come in handy when trying to find out information about file usage. 19.4.2. iostat The iostat(8) command does exactly what it sounds like, it reports the status of the I/O subsystems on the system. When iostat is employed, the user typically runs it with a certain number of counts and an interval between them like so: $ iostat -c 5 -w 5 tty wd0 cd0 fd0 md0 cpu tin tout KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s us ni sy in id 0 1 5.13 1 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 0 54 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 0 18 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 0 18 8.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 0 28 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 The above output is from a very quiet ftp server. The fields represent the various I/O devices, the tty (which, ironically, is the most active because iostat is running), wd0 which is the primary IDE disk, cd0, the cdrom drive, fd0, the floppy and the memory filesystem. Now, let's see if we can pummel the system with some heavy usage. First, a large ftp transaction consisting of a tarball of netbsd-current source along with the bonnie++ disk benchmark program running at the same time. $ iostat -c 5 -w 5 tty wd0 cd0 fd0 md0 cpu tin tout KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s KB/t t/s MB/s us ni sy in id 0 1 5.68 1 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 100 0 54 61.03 150 8.92 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 1 0 18 4 78 0 26 63.14 157 9.71 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 1 0 20 4 75 0 20 43.58 26 1.12 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0 0 9 2 88 0 28 19.49 82 1.55 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 1 0 7 3 89 As can be expected, notice that wd0 is very active, what is interesting about this output is how the processor's I/O seems to rise in proportion to wd0. This makes perfect sense, however, it is worth noting that only because this ftp server is hardly being used can that be observed. If, for example, the cpu I/O subsystem was already under a moderate load and the disk subsystem was under the same load as it is now, it could appear that the cpu is bottlenecked when in fact it would have been the disk. In such a case, we can observe that "one tool" is rarely enough to completely analyze a problem. A quick glance at processes probably would tell us (after watching iostat) which processes were causing problems. 19.4.3. ps Using the ps(1) command or process status, a great deal of information about the system can be discovered. Most of the time, the ps command is used to isolate a particular process by name, group, owner etc. Invoked with no options or arguments, ps simply prints out information about the user executing it. $ ps PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND 21560 p0 Is 0:00.04 -tcsh 21564 p0 I+ 0:00.37 ssh jrf.odpn.net 21598 p1 Ss 0:00.12 -tcsh 21673 p1 R+ 0:00.00 ps 21638 p2 Is+ 0:00.06 -tcsh Not very exciting. The fields are self explanatory with the exception of STAT which is actually the state a process is in. The flags are all documented in the man page, however, in the above example, I is idle, S is sleeping, R is runnable, the + means the process is in a foreground state, and the s means the process is a session leader. This all makes perfect sense when looking at the flags, for example, PID 21560 is a shell, it is idle and (as would be expected) the shell is the process leader. In most cases, someone is looking for something very specific in the process listing. As an example, looking at all processes is specified with -a, to see all processes plus those without controlling terminals is -ax and to get a much more verbose listing (basically everything plus information about the impact processes are having) aux: # ps aux USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND root 0 0.0 9.6 0 6260 ?? DLs 16Jul02 0:01.00 (swapper) root 23362 0.0 0.8 144 488 ?? S 12:38PM 0:00.01 ftpd -l root 23328 0.0 0.4 428 280 p1 S 12:34PM 0:00.04 -csh jrf 23312 0.0 1.8 828 1132 p1 Is 12:32PM 0:00.06 -tcsh root 23311 0.0 1.8 388 1156 ?? S 12:32PM 0:01.60 sshd: jrf@ttyp1 jrf 21951 0.0 1.7 244 1124 p0 S+ 4:22PM 0:02.90 ssh jrf.odpn.net jrf 21947 0.0 1.7 828 1128 p0 Is 4:21PM 0:00.04 -tcsh root 21946 0.0 1.8 388 1156 ?? S 4:21PM 0:04.94 sshd: jrf@ttyp0 nobody 5032 0.0 2.0 1616 1300 ?? I 19Jul02 0:00.02 /usr/pkg/sbin/httpd ... Again, most of the fields are self explanatory with the exception of VSZ and RSS which can be a little confusing. RSS is the real size of a process in 1024 byte units while VSZ is the virtual size. This is all great, but again, how can ps help? Well, for one, take a look at this modified version of the same output: # ps aux USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND root 0 0.0 9.6 0 6260 ?? DLs 16Jul02 0:01.00 (swapper) root 23362 0.0 0.8 144 488 ?? S 12:38PM 0:00.01 ftpd -l root 23328 0.0 0.4 428 280 p1 S 12:34PM 0:00.04 -csh jrf 23312 0.0 1.8 828 1132 p1 Is 12:32PM 0:00.06 -tcsh root 23311 0.0 1.8 388 1156 ?? S 12:32PM 0:01.60 sshd: jrf@ttyp1 jrf 21951 0.0 1.7 244 1124 p0 S+ 4:22PM 0:02.90 ssh jrf.odpn.net jrf 21947 0.0 1.7 828 1128 p0 Is 4:21PM 0:00.04 -tcsh root 21946 0.0 1.8 388 1156 ?? S 4:21PM 0:04.94 sshd: jrf@ttyp0 nobody 5032 9.0 2.0 1616 1300 ?? I 19Jul02 0:00.02 /usr/pkg/sbin/httpd ... Given that on this server, our baseline indicates a relatively quiet system, the PID 5032 has an unusually large amount of %CPU. Sometimes this can also cause high TIME numbers. The ps command can be grepped on for PIDs, username and process name and hence help track down processes that may be experiencing problems. 19.4.4. vmstat Using vmstat(1), information pertaining to virtual memory can be monitored and measured. Not unlike iostat, vmstat can be invoked with a count and interval. Following is some sample output using -c 5 -w 5 like the iostat example: # vmstat -c 5 -w 5 procs memory page disks faults cpu r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr w0 c0 f0 m0 in sy cs us sy id 0 7 0 17716 33160 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 105 15 4 0 0 100 0 7 0 17724 33156 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 109 6 3 0 0 100 0 7 0 17724 33156 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 105 6 3 0 0 100 0 7 0 17724 33156 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 107 6 3 0 0 100 0 7 0 17724 33156 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 105 6 3 0 0 100 Yet again, relatively quiet, for posterity, the exact same load that was put on this server in the iostat example will be used. The load is a large file transfer and the bonnie benchmark program. # vmstat -c 5 -w 5 procs memory page disks faults cpu r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr w0 c0 f0 m0 in sy cs us sy id 1 8 0 18880 31968 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 105 15 4 0 0 100 0 8 0 18888 31964 2 0 0 0 0 0 130 0 0 0 1804 5539 1094 31 22 47 1 7 0 18888 31964 1 0 0 0 0 0 130 0 0 0 1802 5500 1060 36 16 49 1 8 0 18888 31964 1 0 0 0 0 0 160 0 0 0 1849 5905 1107 21 22 57 1 7 0 18888 31964 1 0 0 0 0 0 175 0 0 0 1893 6167 1082 1 25 75 Just a little different. Notice, since most of the work was I/O based, the actual memory used was not very much. Since this system uses mfs for /tmp, however, it can certainly get beat up. Have a look at this: # vmstat -c 5 -w 5 procs memory page disks faults cpu r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr w0 c0 f0 m0 in sy cs us sy id 0 2 0 99188 500 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 105 16 4 0 0 100 0 2 0111596 436 592 0 587 624 586 1210 624 0 0 0 741 883 1088 0 11 89 0 3 0123976 784 666 0 662 643 683 1326 702 0 0 0 828 993 1237 0 12 88 0 2 0134692 1236 581 0 571 563 595 1158 599 0 0 0 722 863 1066 0 9 90 2 0 0142860 912 433 0 406 403 405 808 429 0 0 0 552 602 768 0 7 93 Pretty scary stuff. That was created by running bonnie in /tmp on a memory based filesystem. If it continued for too long, it is possible the system could have started thrashing. Notice that even though the VM subsystem was taking a beating, the processors still were not getting too battered. 19.5. Network Tools Sometimes a performance problem is not a particular machine, it is the network or some sort of device on the network such as another host, a router etc. What other machines that provide a service or some sort of connectivity to a particular NetBSD system do and how they act can have a very large impact on performance of the NetBSD system itself, or the perception of performance by users. A really great example of this is when a DNS server that a NetBSD machine is using suddenly disappears. Lookups take long and they eventually fail. Someone logged into the NetBSD machine who is not experienced would undoubtedly (provided they had no other evidence) blame the NetBSD system. One of my personal favorites, "the Internet is broke" usually means either DNS service or a router/gateway has dropped offline. Whatever the case may be, a NetBSD system comes adequately armed to deal with finding out what network issues may be cropping up whether the fault of the local system or some other issue. 19.5.1. ping The classic ping(8) utility can tell us if there is just plain connectivity, it can also tell if host resolution (depending on how nsswitch.conf dictates) is working. Following is some typical ping output on a local network with a count of 3 specified: # ping -c 3 marie PING marie (172.16.14.12): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 172.16.14.12: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.571 ms 64 bytes from 172.16.14.12: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.361 ms 64 bytes from 172.16.14.12: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.371 ms ----marie PING Statistics---- 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.361/0.434/0.571/0.118 ms Not only does ping tell us if a host is alive, it tells us how long it took and gives some nice details at the very end. If a host cannot be resolved, just the IP address can be specified as well: # ping -c 1 172.16.20.5 PING ash (172.16.20.5): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 172.16.20.5: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.452 ms ----ash PING Statistics---- 1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.452/0.452/0.452/0.000 ms Now, not unlike any other tool, the times are very subjective, especially in regards to networking. For example, while the times in the examples are good, take a look at the localhost ping: # ping -c 4 localhost PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.091 ms 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.129 ms 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.120 ms 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=0.122 ms ----localhost PING Statistics---- 4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.091/0.115/0.129/0.017 ms Much smaller because the request never left the machine. Pings can be used to gather information about how well a network is performing. It is also good for problem isolation, for instance, if there are three relatively close in size NetBSD systems on a network and one of them simply has horrible ping times, chances are something is wrong on that one particular machine. 19.5.2. traceroute The traceroute(8) command is great for making sure a path is available or detecting problems on a particular path. As an example, here is a trace between the example ftp server and ftp.NetBSD.org: # traceroute ftp.NetBSD.org traceroute to ftp.NetBSD.org (204.152.184.75), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 208.44.95.1 (208.44.95.1) 1.646 ms 1.492 ms 1.456 ms 2 63.144.65.170 (63.144.65.170) 7.318 ms 3.249 ms 3.854 ms 3 chcg01-edge18.il.inet.qwest.net (65.113.85.229) 35.982 ms 28.667 ms 21.971 ms 4 chcg01-core01.il.inet.qwest.net (205.171.20.1) 22.607 ms 26.242 ms 19.631 ms 5 snva01-core01.ca.inet.qwest.net (205.171.8.50) 78.586 ms 70.585 ms 84.779 ms 6 snva01-core03.ca.inet.qwest.net (205.171.14.122) 69.222 ms 85.739 ms 75.979 ms 7 paix01-brdr02.ca.inet.qwest.net (205.171.205.30) 83.882 ms 67.739 ms 69.937 ms 8 198.32.175.3 (198.32.175.3) 72.782 ms 67.687 ms 73.320 ms 9 so-1-0-0.orpa8.pf.isc.org (192.5.4.231) 78.007 ms 81.860 ms 77.069 ms 10 tun0.orrc5.pf.isc.org (192.5.4.165) 70.808 ms 75.151 ms 81.485 ms 11 ftp.NetBSD.org (204.152.184.75) 69.700 ms 69.528 ms 77.788 ms All in all, not bad. The trace went from the host to the local router, then out onto the provider network and finally out onto the Internet looking for the final destination. How to interpret traceroutes, again, are subjective, but abnormally high times in portions of a path can indicate a bottleneck on a piece of network equipment. Not unlike ping, if the host itself is suspect, run traceroute from another host to the same destination. Now, for the worst case scenario: # traceroute www.microsoft.com traceroute: Warning: www.microsoft.com has multiple addresses; using 207.46.230.220 traceroute to www.microsoft.akadns.net (207.46.230.220), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 208.44.95.1 (208.44.95.1) 2.517 ms 4.922 ms 5.987 ms 2 63.144.65.170 (63.144.65.170) 10.981 ms 3.374 ms 3.249 ms 3 chcg01-edge18.il.inet.qwest.net (65.113.85.229) 37.810 ms 37.505 ms 20.795 ms 4 chcg01-core03.il.inet.qwest.net (205.171.20.21) 36.987 ms 32.320 ms 22.430 ms 5 chcg01-brdr03.il.inet.qwest.net (205.171.20.142) 33.155 ms 32.859 ms 33.462 ms 6 205.171.1.162 (205.171.1.162) 39.265 ms 20.482 ms 26.084 ms 7 sl-bb24-chi-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.26.85) 26.681 ms 24.000 ms 28.975 ms 8 sl-bb21-sea-10-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.30) 65.329 ms 69.694 ms 76.704 ms 9 sl-bb21-tac-9-1.sprintlink.net (144.232.9.221) 65.659 ms 66.797 ms 74.408 ms 10 144.232.187.194 (144.232.187.194) 104.657 ms 89.958 ms 91.754 ms 11 207.46.154.1 (207.46.154.1) 89.197 ms 84.527 ms 81.629 ms 12 207.46.155.10 (207.46.155.10) 78.090 ms 91.550 ms 89.480 ms 13 * * * ....... In this case, the Microsoft server cannot be found either because of multiple addresses or somewhere along the line a system or server cannot reply to the information request. At that point, one might think to try ping, in the Microsoft case, a ping does not reply, that is because somewhere on their network ICMP is most likely disabled. 19.5.3. netstat Another problem that can crop up on a NetBSD system is routing table issues. These issues are not always the systems fault. The route(8) and netstat(1) commands can show information about routes and network connections (respectively). The route command can be used to look at and modify routing tables while netstat can display information about network connections and routes. First, here is some output from route show: # route show Routing tables Internet: Destination Gateway Flags default 208.44.95.1 UG loopback 127.0.0.1 UG localhost 127.0.0.1 UH 172.15.13.0 172.16.14.37 UG 172.16.0.0 link#2 U 172.16.14.8 0:80:d3:cc:2c:0 UH 172.16.14.10 link#2 UH marie 0:10:83:f9:6f:2c UH 172.16.14.37 0:5:32:8f:d2:35 UH 172.16.16.15 link#2 UH loghost 8:0:20:a7:f0:75 UH artemus 8:0:20:a8:d:7e UH ash 0:b0:d0:de:49:df UH 208.44.95.0 link#1 U 208.44.95.1 0:4:27:3:94:20 UH 208.44.95.2 0:5:32:8f:d2:34 UH 208.44.95.25 0:c0:4f:10:79:92 UH Internet6: Destination Gateway Flags default localhost UG default localhost UG localhost localhost UH ::127.0.0.0 localhost UG ::224.0.0.0 localhost UG ::255.0.0.0 localhost UG ::ffff:0.0.0.0 localhost UG 2002:: localhost UG 2002:7f00:: localhost UG 2002:e000:: localhost UG 2002:ff00:: localhost UG fe80:: localhost UG fe80::%ex0 link#1 U fe80::%ex1 link#2 U fe80::%lo0 fe80::1%lo0 U fec0:: localhost UG ff01:: localhost U ff02::%ex0 link#1 U ff02::%ex1 link#2 U ff02::%lo0 fe80::1%lo0 U The flags section shows the status and whether or not it is a gateway. In this case we see U, H and G (U is up, H is host and G is gateway, see the man page for additional flags). Now for some netstat output using the -r (routing) and -n (show network numbers) options: Routing tables Internet: Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Interface default 208.44.95.1 UGS 0 330309 1500 ex0 127 127.0.0.1 UGRS 0 0 33228 lo0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 1 1624 33228 lo0 172.15.13/24 172.16.14.37 UGS 0 0 1500 ex1 172.16 link#2 UC 13 0 1500 ex1 ... Internet6: Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Mtu Interface ::/104 ::1 UGRS 0 0 33228 lo0 => ::/96 ::1 UGRS 0 0 The above output is a little more verbose. So, how can this help? Well, a good example is when routes between networks get changed while users are connected. I saw this happen several times when someone was rebooting routers all day long after each change. Several users called up saying they were getting kicked out and it was taking very long to log back in. As it turned out, the clients connecting to the system were redirected to another router (which took a very long route) to reconnect. I observed the M flag or Modified dynamically (by redirect) on their connections. I deleted the routes, had them reconnect and summarily followed up with the offending technician. 19.5.4. tcpdump Last, and definitely not least is tcpdump(8), the network sniffer that can retrieve a lot of information. In this discussion, there will be some sample output and an explanation of some of the more useful options of tcpdump. Following is a small snippet of tcpdump in action just as it starts: # tcpdump tcpdump: listening on ex0 14:07:29.920651 mail.ssh > 208.44.95.231.3551: P 2951836801:2951836845(44) ack 2 476972923 win 17520 [tos 0x10] 14:07:29.950594 12.125.61.34 > 208.44.95.16: ESP(spi=2548773187,seq=0x3e8c) (DF) 14:07:29.983117 smtp.somecorp.com.smtp > 208.44.95.30.42828: . ack 420285166 win 16500 (DF) 14:07:29.984406 208.44.95.30.42828 > smtp.somecorp.com.smtp: . 1:1376(1375) ack 0 win 7431 (DF) ... Given that the particular server is a mail server, what is shown makes perfect sense, however, the utility is very verbose, I prefer to initially run tcpdump with no options and send the text output into a file for later digestion like so: # tcpdump > tcpdump.out tcpdump: listening on ex0 So, what precisely in the mish mosh are we looking for? In short, anything that does not seem to fit, for example, messed up packet lengths (as in a lot of them) will show up as improper lens or malformed packets (basically garbage). If, however, we are looking for something specific, tcpdump may be able to help depending on the problem. 19.5.4.1. Specific tcpdump Usage These are just examples of a few things one can do with tcpdump. Look for duplicate IP addresses: tcpdump -e host ip-address For example: tcpdump -e host 192.168.0.2 Routing Problems: tcpdump icmp There are plenty of third party tools available, however, NetBSD comes shipped with a good tool set for tracking down network level performance problems. 19.6. Accounting The NetBSD system comes equipped with a great deal of performance monitors for active monitoring, but what about long term monitoring? Well, of course the output of a variety of commands can be sent to files and re-parsed later with a meaningful shell script or program. NetBSD does, by default, offer some extraordinarily powerful low level monitoring tools for the programmer, administrator or really astute hobbyist. 19.6.1. Accounting While accounting gives system usage at an almost userland level, kernel profiling with gprof provides explicit system call usage. Using the accounting tools can help figure out what possible performance problems may be lying in wait, such as increased usage of compilers or network services for example. Starting accounting is actually fairly simple, as root, use the accton(8) command. The syntax to start accounting is: accton filename Where accounting information is appended to filename, now, strangely enough, the lastcomm command which reads from an accounting output file, by default, looks in /var/account/acct so I tend to just use the default location, however, lastcomm can be told to look elsewhere. To stop accounting, simply type accton with no arguments. 19.6.2. Reading Accounting Information To read accounting information, there are two tools that can be used: * lastcomm(1) * sa(8) 19.6.2.1. lastcomm The lastcomm command shows the last commands executed in order, like all of them. It can, however, select by user, here is some sample output: $ lastcomm jrf last - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:39 (0:00:00.02) man - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:01:49.03) sh - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:01:49.03) less - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:01:49.03) lastcomm - jrf ttyp3 0.02 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:00:00.02) stty - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:00:00.02) tset - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:00:01.05) hostname - jrf ttyp3 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:38 (0:00:00.02) ls - jrf ttyp0 0.00 secs Tue Sep 3 14:36 (0:00:00.00) ... Pretty nice, the lastcomm command gets its information from the default location of /var/account/acct, however, using the -f option, another file may be specified. As may seem obvious, the output of lastcomm could get a little heavy on large multi user systems. That is where sa comes into play. 19.6.2.2. sa The sa command (meaning "print system accounting statistics") can be used to maintain information. It can also be used interactively to create reports. Following is the default output of sa: $ sa 77 18.62re 0.02cp 8avio 0k 3 4.27re 0.01cp 45avio 0k ispell 2 0.68re 0.00cp 33avio 0k mutt 2 1.09re 0.00cp 23avio 0k vi 10 0.61re 0.00cp 7avio 0k ***other 2 0.01re 0.00cp 29avio 0k exim 4 0.00re 0.00cp 8avio 0k lastcomm 2 0.00re 0.00cp 3avio 0k atrun 3 0.03re 0.00cp 1avio 0k cron* 5 0.02re 0.00cp 10avio 0k exim* 10 3.98re 0.00cp 2avio 0k less 11 0.00re 0.00cp 0avio 0k ls 9 3.95re 0.00cp 12avio 0k man 2 0.00re 0.00cp 4avio 0k sa 12 3.97re 0.00cp 1avio 0k sh ... From left to right, total times called, real time in minutes, sum of user and system time, in minutes, Average number of I/O operations per execution, size, command name. The sa command can also be used to create summary files or reports based on some options, for example, here is the output when specifying a sort by CPU-time average memory usage: $ sa -k 86 30.81re 0.02cp 8avio 0k 10 0.61re 0.00cp 7avio 0k ***other 2 0.00re 0.00cp 3avio 0k atrun 3 0.03re 0.00cp 1avio 0k cron* 2 0.01re 0.00cp 29avio 0k exim 5 0.02re 0.00cp 10avio 0k exim* 3 4.27re 0.01cp 45avio 0k ispell 4 0.00re 0.00cp 8avio 0k lastcomm 12 8.04re 0.00cp 2avio 0k less 13 0.00re 0.00cp 0avio 0k ls 11 8.01re 0.00cp 12avio 0k man 2 0.68re 0.00cp 33avio 0k mutt 3 0.00re 0.00cp 4avio 0k sa 14 8.03re 0.00cp 1avio 0k sh 2 1.09re 0.00cp 23avio 0k vi The sa command is very helpful on larger systems. 19.6.3. How to Put Accounting to Use Accounting reports, as was mentioned earlier, offer a way to help predict trends, for example, on a system that has cc and make being used more and more may indicate that in a few months some changes will need to be made to keep the system running at an optimum level. Another good example is web server usage. If it begins to gradually increase, again, some sort of action may need to be taken before it becomes a problem. Luckily, with accounting tools, said actions can be reasonably predicted and planned for ahead of time. 19.7. Kernel Profiling Profiling a kernel is normally employed when the goal is to compare the difference of new changes in the kernel to a previous one or to track down some sort of low level performance problem. Two sets of data about profiled code behavior are recorded independently: function call frequency and time spent in each function. 19.7.1. Getting Started First, take a look at both Section 19.9, "Kernel Tuning" and Chapter 34, Compiling the kernel. The only difference in procedure for setting up a kernel with profiling enabled is when you run config add the -p option. The build area is ../compile/.PROF , for example, a GENERIC kernel would be ../ compile/GENERIC.PROF. Following is a quick summary of how to compile a kernel with profiling enabled on the amd64 port, the assumptions are that the appropriate sources are available under /usr/src and the GENERIC configuration is being used, of course, that may not always be the situation: 1. cd /usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/conf 2. config -p GENERIC 3. cd ../compile/GENERIC.PROF 4. make depend && make 5. cp /netbsd /netbsd.old 6. cp netbsd / 7. reboot Once the new kernel is in place and the system has rebooted, it is time to turn on the monitoring and start looking at results. 19.7.1.1. Using kgmon To start kgmon: $ kgmon -b kgmon: kernel profiling is running. Next, send the data into the file gmon.out: $ kgmon -p Now, it is time to make the output readable: $ gprof /netbsd > gprof.out Since gmon is looking for gmon.out, it should find it in the current working directory. By just running kgmon alone, you may not get the information you need, however, if you are comparing the differences between two different kernels, then a known good baseline should be used. Note that it is generally a good idea to stress the subsystem if you know what it is both in the baseline and with the newer (or different) kernel. 19.7.2. Interpretation of kgmon Output Now that kgmon can run, collect and parse information, it is time to actually look at some of that information. In this particular instance, a GENERIC kernel is running with profiling enabled for about an hour with only system processes and no adverse load, in the fault insertion section, the example will be large enough that even under a minimal load detection of the problem should be easy. 19.7.2.1. Flat Profile The flat profile is a list of functions, the number of times they were called and how long it took (in seconds). Following is sample output from the quiet system: Flat profile: Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ns/call ns/call name 99.77 163.87 163.87 idle 0.03 163.92 0.05 219 228310.50 228354.34 _wdc_ata_bio_start 0.02 163.96 0.04 219 182648.40 391184.96 wdc_ata_bio_intr 0.01 163.98 0.02 3412 5861.66 6463.02 pmap_enter 0.01 164.00 0.02 548 36496.35 36496.35 pmap_zero_page 0.01 164.02 0.02 Xspllower 0.01 164.03 0.01 481968 20.75 20.75 gettick 0.01 164.04 0.01 6695 1493.65 1493.65 VOP_LOCK 0.01 164.05 0.01 3251 3075.98 21013.45 syscall_plain ... As expected, idle was the highest in percentage, however, there were still some things going on, for example, a little further down there is the vn_lock function: ... 0.00 164.14 0.00 6711 0.00 0.00 VOP_UNLOCK 0.00 164.14 0.00 6677 0.00 1493.65 vn_lock 0.00 164.14 0.00 6441 0.00 0.00 genfs_unlock This is to be expected, since locking still has to take place, regardless. 19.7.2.2. Call Graph Profile The call graph is an augmented version of the flat profile showing subsequent calls from the listed functions. First, here is some sample output: Call graph (explanation follows) granularity: each sample hit covers 4 byte(s) for 0.01% of 164.14 seconds index % time self children called name [1] 99.8 163.87 0.00 idle [1] ----------------------------------------------- [2] 0.1 0.01 0.08 syscall1 [2] 0.01 0.06 3251/3251 syscall_plain [7] 0.00 0.01 414/1660 trap [9] ----------------------------------------------- 0.00 0.09 219/219 Xintr14 [6] [3] 0.1 0.00 0.09 219 pciide_compat_intr [3] 0.00 0.09 219/219 wdcintr [5] ----------------------------------------------- ... Now this can be a little confusing. The index number is mapped to from the trailing number on the end of the line, for example, ... 0.00 0.01 85/85 dofilewrite [68] [72] 0.0 0.00 0.01 85 soo_write [72] 0.00 0.01 85/89 sosend [71] ... Here we see that dofilewrite was called first, now we can look at the index number for 64 and see what was happening there: ... 0.00 0.01 101/103 ffs_full_fsync [58] [64] 0.0 0.00 0.01 103 bawrite [64] 0.00 0.01 103/105 VOP_BWRITE [60] ... And so on, in this way, a "visual trace" can be established. At the end of the call graph right after the terms section is an index by function name which can help map indexes as well. 19.7.3. Putting it to Use In this example, I have modified an area of the kernel I know will create a problem that will be blatantly obvious. Here is the top portion of the flat profile after running the system for about an hour with little interaction from users: Flat profile: Each sample counts as 0.01 seconds. % cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls us/call us/call name 93.97 139.13 139.13 idle 5.87 147.82 8.69 23 377826.09 377842.52 check_exec 0.01 147.84 0.02 243 82.30 82.30 pmap_copy_page 0.01 147.86 0.02 131 152.67 152.67 _wdc_ata_bio_start 0.01 147.88 0.02 131 152.67 271.85 wdc_ata_bio_intr 0.01 147.89 0.01 4428 2.26 2.66 uvn_findpage 0.01 147.90 0.01 4145 2.41 2.41 uvm_pageactivate 0.01 147.91 0.01 2473 4.04 3532.40 syscall_plain 0.01 147.92 0.01 1717 5.82 5.82 i486_copyout 0.01 147.93 0.01 1430 6.99 56.52 uvm_fault 0.01 147.94 0.01 1309 7.64 7.64 pool_get 0.01 147.95 0.01 673 14.86 38.43 genfs_getpages 0.01 147.96 0.01 498 20.08 20.08 pmap_zero_page 0.01 147.97 0.01 219 45.66 46.28 uvm_unmap_remove 0.01 147.98 0.01 111 90.09 90.09 selscan ... As is obvious, there is a large difference in performance. Right off the bat the idle time is noticeably less. The main difference here is that one particular function has a large time across the board with very few calls. That function is check_exec. While at first, this may not seem strange if a lot of commands had been executed, when compared to the flat profile of the first measurement, proportionally it does not seem right: ... 0.00 164.14 0.00 37 0.00 62747.49 check_exec ... The call in the first measurement is made 37 times and has a better performance. Obviously something in or around that function is wrong. To eliminate other functions, a look at the call graph can help, here is the first instance of check_exec ... ----------------------------------------------- 0.00 8.69 23/23 syscall_plain [3] [4] 5.9 0.00 8.69 23 sys_execve [4] 8.69 0.00 23/23 check_exec [5] 0.00 0.00 20/20 elf32_copyargs [67] ... Notice how the time of 8.69 seems to affect the two previous functions. It is possible that there is something wrong with them, however, the next instance of check_exec seems to prove otherwise: ... ----------------------------------------------- 8.69 0.00 23/23 sys_execve [4] [5] 5.9 8.69 0.00 23 check_exec [5] ... Now we can see that the problem, most likely, resides in check_exec. Of course, problems are not always this simple and in fact, here is the simpleton code that was inserted right after check_exec (the function is in sys/kern/ kern_exec.c): ... /* A Cheap fault insertion */ for (x = 0; x < 100000000; x++) { y = x; } .. Not exactly glamorous, but enough to register a large change with profiling. 19.7.4. Summary Kernel profiling can be enlightening for anyone and provides a much more refined method of hunting down performance problems that are not as easy to find using conventional means, it is also not nearly as hard as most people think, if you can compile a kernel, you can get profiling to work. 19.8. System Tuning Now that monitoring and analysis tools have been addressed, it is time to look into some actual methods. In this section, tools and methods that can affect how the system performs that are applied without recompiling the kernel are addressed, the next section examines kernel tuning by recompiling. 19.8.1. Using sysctl The sysctl utility can be used to look at and in some cases alter system parameters. There are so many parameters that can be viewed and changed they cannot all be shown here, however, for the first example here is a simple usage of sysctl to look at the system PATH environment variable: $ sysctl user.cs_path user.cs_path = /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/pkg/bin:/usr/pkg/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin Fairly simple. Now something that is actually related to performance. As an example, let's say a system with many users is having file open issues, by examining and perhaps raising the kern.maxfiles parameter the problem may be fixed, but first, a look: $ sysctl kern.maxfiles kern.maxfiles = 1772 Now, to change it, as root with the -w option specified: # sysctl -w kern.maxfiles=1972 kern.maxfiles: 1772 -> 1972 Note, when the system is rebooted, the old value will return, there are two cures for this, first, modify that parameter in the kernel and recompile, second (and simpler) add this line to /etc/sysctl.conf: kern.maxfiles=1972 19.8.2. tmpfs & mfs NetBSD's "ramdisk" implementations cache all data in the RAM, and if that is full, the swap space is used as backing store. NetBSD comes with two implementations, the traditional BSD memory-based file system "mfs" and the more modern "tmpfs". While the former can only grow in size, the latter can also shrink if space is no longer needed. When to use and not to use a memory based filesystem can be hard on large multi user systems. In some cases, however, it makes pretty good sense, for example, on a development machine used by only one developer at a time, the obj directory might be a good place, or some of the tmp directories for builds. In a case like that, it makes sense on machines that have a fair amount of RAM on them. On the other side of the coin, if a system only has 16MB of RAM and /var/ tmp is mfs-based, there could be severe applications issues that occur. The GENERIC kernel has both tmpfs and mfs enabled by default. To use it on a particular directory first determine where the swap space is that you wish to use, in the example case, a quick look in /etc/fstab indicates that /dev/wd0b is the swap partition: mail% cat /etc/fstab /dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1 /dev/wd0b none swap sw 0 0 /kern /kern kernfs rw This system is a mail server so I only want to use /tmp with tmpfs, also on this particular system I have linked /tmp to /var/tmp to save space (they are on the same drive). All I need to do is add the following entry: /dev/wd0b /var/tmp tmpfs rw 0 0 If you want to use "mfs" instead of "tmpfs", put just that into the above place. Now, a word of warning: make sure said directories are empty and nothing is using them when you mount the memory file system! After changing /etc/fstab, you can either run mount -a or reboot the system. 19.8.3. Journaling Journaling is a mechanism which puts written data in a so-called "journal" first, and in a second step the data from the journal is written to disk. In the event of a system crash, data that was not written to disk but that is in the journal can be replayed, and will thus get the disk into a proper state. The main effect of this is that no file system check (fsck) is needed after a rough reboot. Journaling can be enabled by adding "log" to the filesystem options in /etc/ fstab. Here is an example which enables journaling for the root (/), /var, and /usr file systems: /dev/wd0a / ffs rw,log 1 1 /dev/wd0e /var ffs rw,log 1 2 /dev/wd0g /usr ffs rw,log 1 2 19.8.4. LFS LFS, the log structured filesystem, writes data to disk in a way that is sometimes too aggressive and leads to congestion. To throttle writing, the following sysctls can be used: vfs.sync.delay vfs.sync.filedelay vfs.sync.dirdelay vfs.sync.metadelay vfs.lfs.flushindir vfs.lfs.clean_vnhead vfs.lfs.dostats vfs.lfs.pagetrip vfs.lfs.stats.segsused vfs.lfs.stats.psegwrites vfs.lfs.stats.psyncwrites vfs.lfs.stats.pcleanwrites vfs.lfs.stats.blocktot vfs.lfs.stats.cleanblocks vfs.lfs.stats.ncheckpoints vfs.lfs.stats.nwrites vfs.lfs.stats.nsync_writes vfs.lfs.stats.wait_exceeded vfs.lfs.stats.write_exceeded vfs.lfs.stats.flush_invoked vfs.lfs.stats.vflush_invoked vfs.lfs.stats.clean_inlocked vfs.lfs.stats.clean_vnlocked vfs.lfs.stats.segs_reclaimed vfs.lfs.ignore_lazy_sync Besides tuning those parameters, disabling write-back caching on wd(4) devices may be beneficial. See the dkctl(8) man page for details. More is available in the NetBSD mailing list archives. See this and this mail. 19.9. Kernel Tuning While many system parameters can be changed with sysctl, many improvements by using enhanced system software, layout of the system and managing services (moving them in and out of inetd for example) can be achieved as well. Tuning the kernel however will provide better performance, even if it appears to be marginal. 19.9.1. Preparing to Recompile a Kernel First, get the kernel sources for the release as described in Chapter 32, Obtaining the sources, reading Chapter 34, Compiling the kernel for more information on building the kernel is recommended. Note, this document can be used for -current tuning, however, a read of the Tracking -current documentation should be done first, much of the information there is repeated here. 19.9.2. Configuring the Kernel Configuring a kernel in NetBSD can be daunting. This is because of multiple line dependencies within the configuration file itself, however, there is a benefit to this method and that is, all it really takes is an ASCII editor to get a new kernel configured and some dmesg output. The kernel configuration file is under src/sys/arch/ARCH/conf where ARCH is your architecture (for example, on a SPARC it would be under src/sys/arch/sparc/conf). After you have located your kernel config file, copy it and remove (comment out) all the entries you don't need. This is where dmesg(8) becomes your friend. A clean dmesg(8)-output will show all of the devices detected by the kernel at boot time. Using dmesg(8) output, the device options really needed can be determined. 19.9.2.1. Some example Configuration Items In this example, an ftp server's kernel is being reconfigured to run with the bare minimum drivers and options and any other items that might make it run faster (again, not necessarily smaller, although it will be). The first thing to do is take a look at some of the main configuration items. So, in /usr/src/ sys/arch/amd64/conf the GENERIC file is copied to FTP, then the file FTP edited. At the start of the file there are a bunch of options beginning with maxusers, which will be left alone, however, on larger multi-user systems it might be help to crank that value up a bit. Next is CPU support, looking at the dmesg output this is seen: cpu0: Intel Pentium II/Celeron (Deschutes) (686-class), 400.93 MHz Indicating that only the options I686_CPU options needs to be used. In the next section, all options are left alone except the PIC_DELAY which is recommended unless it is an older machine. In this case it is enabled since the 686 is " relatively new." Between the last section all the way down to compat options there really was no need to change anything on this particular system. In the compat section, however, there are several options that do not need to be enabled, again this is because this machine is strictly a FTP server, all compat options were turned off. The next section is File systems, and again, for this server very few need to be on, the following were left on: # File systems file-system FFS # UFS file-system LFS # log-structured file system file-system MFS # memory file system file-system CD9660 # ISO 9660 + Rock Ridge file system file-system FDESC # /dev/fd file-system KERNFS # /kern file-system NULLFS # loopback file system file-system PROCFS # /proc file-system UMAPFS # NULLFS + uid and gid remapping ... options SOFTDEP # FFS soft updates support. ... Next comes the network options section. The only options left on were: options INET # IP + ICMP + TCP + UDP options INET6 # IPV6 options IPFILTER_LOG # ipmon(8) log support IPFILTER_LOG is a nice one to have around since the server will be running ipf. The next section is verbose messages for various subsystems, since this machine is already running and had no major problems, all of them are commented out. 19.9.2.2. Some Drivers The configurable items in the config file are relatively few and easy to cover, however, device drivers are a different story. In the following examples, two drivers are examined and their associated "areas" in the file trimmed down. First, a small example: the cdrom, in dmesg, is the following lines: ... cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: type 5 cdrom removable cd0: 32-bit data port cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA mode 2 pciide0: secondary channel interrupting at irq 15 cd0(pciide0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2 (using DMA data transfer ... Now, it is time to track that section down in the configuration file. Notice that the "cd"-drive is on an atapibus and requires pciide support. The section that is of interest in this case is the kernel config's "IDE and related devices" section. It is worth noting at this point, in and around the IDE section are also ISA, PCMCIA etc., on this machine in the dmesg(8) output there are no PCMCIA devices, so it stands to reason that all PCMCIA references can be removed. But first, the "cd" drive. At the start of the IDE section is the following: ... wd* at atabus? drive ? flags 0x0000 ... atapibus* at atapi? ... Well, it is pretty obvious that those lines need to be kept. Next is this: ... # ATAPI devices # flags have the same meaning as for IDE drives. cd* at atapibus? drive ? flags 0x0000 # ATAPI CD-ROM drives sd* at atapibus? drive ? flags 0x0000 # ATAPI disk drives st* at atapibus? drive ? flags 0x0000 # ATAPI tape drives uk* at atapibus? drive ? flags 0x0000 # ATAPI unknown ... The only device type that was in the dmesg(8) output was the cd, the rest can be commented out. The next example is slightly more difficult, network interfaces. This machine has two of them: ... ex0 at pci0 dev 17 function 0: 3Com 3c905B-TX 10/100 Ethernet (rev. 0x64) ex0: interrupting at irq 10 ex0: MAC address 00:50:04:83:ff:b7 UI 0x001018 model 0x0012 rev 0 at ex0 phy 24 not configured ex1 at pci0 dev 19 function 0: 3Com 3c905B-TX 10/100 Ethernet (rev. 0x30) ex1: interrupting at irq 11 ex1: MAC address 00:50:da:63:91:2e exphy0 at ex1 phy 24: 3Com internal media interface exphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto ... At first glance it may appear that there are in fact three devices, however, a closer look at this line: exphy0 at ex1 phy 24: 3Com internal media interface Reveals that it is only two physical cards, not unlike the cdrom, simply removing names that are not in dmesg will do the job. In the beginning of the network interfaces section is: ... # Network Interfaces # PCI network interfaces an* at pci? dev ? function ? # Aironet PC4500/PC4800 (802.11) bge* at pci? dev ? function ? # Broadcom 570x gigabit Ethernet en* at pci? dev ? function ? # ENI/Adaptec ATM ep* at pci? dev ? function ? # 3Com 3c59x epic* at pci? dev ? function ? # SMC EPIC/100 Ethernet esh* at pci? dev ? function ? # Essential HIPPI card ex* at pci? dev ? function ? # 3Com 90x[BC] ... There is the ex device. So all of the rest under the PCI section can be removed. Additionally, every single line all the way down to this one: exphy* at mii? phy ? # 3Com internal PHYs can be commented out as well as the remaining. 19.9.2.3. Multi Pass When I tune a kernel, I like to do it remotely in an X windows session, in one window the dmesg output, in the other the config file. It can sometimes take a few passes to rebuild a very trimmed kernel since it is easy to accidentally remove dependencies. 19.9.3. Building the New Kernel Now it is time to build the kernel and put it in place. In the conf directory on the ftp server, the following command prepares the build: $ config FTP When it is done a message reminding me to make depend will display, next: $ cd ../compile/FTP $ make depend && make When it is done, I backup the old kernel and drop the new one in place: # cp /netbsd /netbsd.orig # cp netbsd / Now reboot. If the kernel cannot boot, stop the boot process when prompted and type boot netbsd.orig to boot from the previous kernel. 19.9.4. Shrinking the NetBSD kernel When building a kernel for embedded systems, it's often necessary to modify the Kernel binary to reduce space or memory footprint. 19.9.4.1. Removing ELF sections and debug information We already know how to remove Kernel support for drivers and options that you don't need, thus saving memory and space, but you can save some KiloBytes of space by removing debugging symbols and two ELF sections if you don't need them: .comment and .ident. They are used for storing RCS strings viewable with ident(1) and a gcc(1) version string. The following examples assume you have your TOOLDIR under /usr/src/tooldir.NetBSD-2.0-i386 and the target architecture is i386. $ /usr/src/tooldir.NetBSD-2.0-i386/bin/i386--netbsdelf-objdump -h /netbsd /netbsd: file format elf32-i386 Sections: Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn 0 .text 0057a374 c0100000 c0100000 00001000 2**4 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE 1 .rodata 00131433 c067a380 c067a380 0057b380 2**5 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 2 .rodata.str1.1 00035ea0 c07ab7b3 c07ab7b3 006ac7b3 2**0 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 3 .rodata.str1.32 00059d13 c07e1660 c07e1660 006e2660 2**5 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 4 link_set_malloc_types 00000198 c083b374 c083b374 0073c374 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 5 link_set_domains 00000024 c083b50c c083b50c 0073c50c 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 6 link_set_pools 00000158 c083b530 c083b530 0073c530 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 7 link_set_sysctl_funcs 000000f0 c083b688 c083b688 0073c688 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 8 link_set_vfsops 00000044 c083b778 c083b778 0073c778 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 9 link_set_dkwedge_methods 00000004 c083b7bc c083b7bc 0073c7bc 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 10 link_set_bufq_strats 0000000c c083b7c0 c083b7c0 0073c7c0 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 11 link_set_evcnts 00000030 c083b7cc c083b7cc 0073c7cc 2**2 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA 12 .data 00048ae4 c083c800 c083c800 0073c800 2**5 CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA 13 .bss 00058974 c0885300 c0885300 00785300 2**5 ALLOC 14 .comment 0000cda0 00000000 00000000 00785300 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY 15 .ident 000119e4 00000000 00000000 007920a0 2**0 CONTENTS, READONLY On the third column we can see the size of the sections in hexadecimal form. By summing .comment and .ident sizes we know how much we're going to save with their removal: around 120KB (= 52640 + 72164 = 0xcda0 + 0x119e4). To remove the sections and debugging symbols that may be present, we're going to use strip(1) : # cp /netbsd /netbsd.orig # /usr/src/tooldir.NetBSD-2.0-i386/bin/i386--netbsdelf-strip -S -R .ident -R .comment /netbsd # ls -l /netbsd /netbsd.orig -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 8590668 Apr 30 15:56 netbsd -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 8757547 Apr 30 15:56 netbsd.orig Since we also removed debugging symbols, the total amount of disk space saved is around 160KB. 19.9.4.2. Compressing the Kernel On some architectures, the bootloader can boot a compressed kernel. You can save several MegaBytes of disk space by using this method, but the bootloader will take longer to load the Kernel. # cp /netbsd /netbsd.plain # gzip -9 /netbsd To see how much space we've saved: $ ls -l /netbsd.plain /netbsd.gz -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 8757547 Apr 29 18:05 /netbsd.plain -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3987769 Apr 29 18:05 /netbsd.gz Note that you can only use gzip coding, by using gzip(1), bzip2 is not supported by the NetBSD bootloaders! Chapter 20. NetBSD Veriexec subsystem Table of Contents 20.1. How it works 20.2. Signatures file 20.3. Generating fingerprints 20.4. Strict levels 20.5. Veriexec and layered file systems 20.6. Kernel configuration Veriexec is NetBSD's file integrity subsystem. It's kernel based, hence can provide some protection even in the case of a root compromise. 20.1. How it works Veriexec works by loading a specification file, also called the signatures file , to the kernel. This file contains information about files Veriexec should monitor, as well as their digital fingerprint (along with the hashing algorithm used to produce this fingerprint), and various flags that will be discussed later. At the moment, the following hashing algorithms are supported by Veriexec: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, and RMD160. 20.2. Signatures file An entry in the Veriexec signatures file looks like this: /path/to/file algorithm fingerprint flags Where the first element, the path, must always be an absolute path. The algorithm is one of the algorithms listed above, and fingerprint is the ASCII fingerprint. 20.3. Generating fingerprints You can generate ASCII fingerprints for each algorithm using the following tools: Table 20.1. Veriexec fingerprints tools +----------------------------------+ |Algorithm| Tool | |---------+------------------------| |MD5 |/usr/bin/cksum -a md5 | |---------+------------------------| |SHA1 |/usr/bin/cksum -a sha1 | |---------+------------------------| |SHA256 |/usr/bin/cksum -a sha256| |---------+------------------------| |SHA384 |/usr/bin/cksum -a sha384| |---------+------------------------| |SHA512 |/usr/bin/cksum -a sha512| |---------+------------------------| |RMD160 |/usr/bin/cksum -a rmd160| +----------------------------------+ For example, to generate a MD5 fingerprint for /bin/ls: % cksum -a md5 < /bin/ls a8b525da46e758778564308ed9b1e493 And to generate a SHA512 fingerprint for /bin/ps: % cksum -a sha512 < /bin/ps 381d4ad64fd47800897446a2026eca42151e03adeae158db5a34d12c529559113d928a9fef9a7c4615d257688d1da4645db004081030d7f080bb7198067eb890 Each entry may be associated with zero or more flags. Currently, these flags indicate how the file the entry is describing should be accessed. Note that this access type is enforced only in strict level 2 (IPS mode) and above. The access types you can use are "DIRECT", "INDIRECT", and "FILE". * DIRECT access means that the file is executed directly, and not invoked as an interpreter for some script, or opened with an editor. Usually, most programs you use will be accessed using this mode: % ls /tmp % cp ~/foo /tmp/bar % rm ~/foo * INDIRECT access means that the file is executed indirectly, and is invoked to interpret a script. This happens usually when scripts have a #! magic as their first line. For example, if you have a script with the following as its first line: #!/bin/sh And you run it as: % ./script.sh Then /bin/sh will be executed indirectly -- it will be invoked to interpret the script. * FILE entries refer to everything which is not (or should not) be an executable. This includes shared libraries, configuration files, etc. Some examples for Veriexec signature file entries: /bin/ls MD5 dc2e14dc84bdefff4bf9777958c1b20b DIRECT /usr/bin/perl MD5 914aa8aa47ebd79ccd7909a09ed61f81 INDIRECT /etc/pf.conf MD5 950e1dd6fcb3f27df1bf6accf7029f7d FILE Veriexec allows you to specify more than one way to access a file in an entry. For example, even though /usr/bin/perl is mostly used as an interpreter, it may be desired to be able to execute it directly, too: /usr/bin/perl MD5 914aa8aa47ebd79ccd7909a09ed61f81 DIRECT, INDIRECT Shell scripts using #! magic to be "executable" also require two access types: We need them to be "DIRECT" so we can execute them, and we need them to be " FILE" so that the kernel can feed their contents to the interpreter they define: /usr/src/build.sh MD5 e80dbb4c047ecc1d84053174c1e9264a DIRECT, FILE To make it easier to create signature files, and to make the signature files themselves more readable, Veriexec allows you to use the following aliases: Table 20.2. Veriexec access type aliases +-------------------------+ | Alias | Expansion | |-----------+-------------| |PROGRAM |DIRECT | |-----------+-------------| |INTERPRETER|INDIRECT | |-----------+-------------| |SCRIPT |DIRECT, FILE | |-----------+-------------| |LIBRARY |FILE | +-------------------------+ After you have generated a signatures file, you should save it as /etc/ signatures, and enable Veriexec in rc.conf: veriexec=YES 20.4. Strict levels Since different people might want to use Veriexec for different purposes, we also define four strict levels, ranging 0-3, and named "learning", "IDS", "IPS" , and "lockdown" modes. In strict level 0, learning mode, Veriexec will act passively and simply warn about any anomalies. Combined with verbose level 1, running the system in this mode can help you fine-tune the signatures file. This is also the only strict level in which you can load new entries to the kernel. Strict level 1, or IDS mode, will deny access to files with a fingerprint mismatch. This mode suits mostly to users who simply want to prevent access to files which might've been maliciously modified by an attacker. Strict level 2, IPS mode, takes a step towards trying to protect the integrity of monitored files. In addition to preventing access to files with a fingerprint mismatch, it will also deny write access and prevent the removal of monitored files, and enforce the way monitored files are accessed. (as the signatures file specifies). Lockdown mode (strict level 3) can be used in highly critical situations such as custom made special-purpose machines, or as a last line of defense after an attacker compromised the system and we want to prevent traces from being removed, so we can perform post-mortem analysis. It will prevent the creation of new files, and deny access to files not monitored by Veriexec. It's recommended to first run Veriexec in strict level 0 and verbose level 1 to fine-tune your signatures file, ensuring that desired applications run correctly, and only then raise the strict level (and lower the verbosity level). You can use /etc/sysctl.conf to auto raise the strict level to the desired level after a reboot: kern.veriexec.strict=1 20.5. Veriexec and layered file systems Veriexec can be used on NFS file systems on the client side and on layered file systems such as the union file system. The files residing on these file systems need only be specified in the /etc/signatures file and that the file systems be mounted prior to the fingerprints being loaded. If you are going to use layered file systems then you must ensure that you include the fingerprint for files you want protected at every layer. If you fail to do this someone could overwrite a file protected by Veriexec by using a different layer in a layered file system stack. This limitation may be removed in later versions of NetBSD. It's recommended that if you are not going to use layered file systems nor NFS then these features should be disabled in they kernel configuration. If you need to use layered file systems then you must follow the instructions in the previous paragraph and ensure that the files you want protected have fingerprints at all layers. Also you should raise securelevel to 2 after all mounts are done: kern.securelevel=2 To prevent new layers being mounted which could compromise Veriexec's protection. 20.6. Kernel configuration To use Veriexec, aside from creating a signatures file, you should enable (uncomment) it in your kernel's config file: (e.g. /usr/src/sys/arch/i386/conf/ GENERIC): pseudo-device veriexec Then, you need to enable the hashing algorithms you wish to support: options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_MD5 options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_SHA1 options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_RMD160 options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_SHA512 options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_SHA384 options VERIFIED_EXEC_FP_SHA256 Depending on your operating system version and platform, these may already be enable. Once done, rebuild and reinstall your kernel, see Chapter 34, Compiling the kernel for further instructions. If you do not have the Veriexec device /dev/veriexec, you can create it manually by running the following command: # cd /dev # sh MAKEDEV veriexec Chapter 21. Bluetooth on NetBSD Table of Contents 21.1. Introduction 21.2. Supported Hardware 21.3. System Configuration 21.4. Human Interface Devices 21.4.1. Mice 21.4.2. Keyboards 21.5. Personal Area Networking 21.5.1. Personal Area Networking User 21.6. Serial Connections 21.7. Audio 21.7.1. SCO Audio Headsets 21.7.2. SCO Audio Handsfree 21.8. Object Exchange 21.9. Troubleshooting 21.1. Introduction Bluetooth is a digital radio protocol used for short range and low power communications. NetBSD includes support for the Bluetooth protocol stack, and some integration of service profiles into the NetBSD device framework. The lower layers of the Bluetooth protocol stack pertaining to actual radio links between devices are handled inside the Bluetooth Controller, which communicates with the Host computer using the "Host Controller Interface" (HCI) protocol which can be accessed via a raw packet BTPROTO_HCI socket interface. Most of the Bluetooth protocols or services layer atop the "Link Layer Control and Adaptation Protocol" (L2CAP), which can be accessed via a BTPROTO_L2CAP socket interface. This provides sequential packet connections to remote devices, with up to 64k channels. When an L2CAP channel is opened, the protocol or service that is required is identified by a "Protocol/Service Multiplexer" (PSM) value. Service Discovery in the Bluetooth environment is provided for by the sdp(3) library functions and the sdpd(8) daemon, which keeps a database of locally registered services and makes the information available to remote devices performing queries. The sdpquery(1) tool can be used to query local and remote service databases. Security on Bluetooth links can be enabled by encryption and authentication options to btconfig(8) which apply to all baseband links that a controller makes, or encryption and authentication can be enabled for individual RFCOMM and L2CAP links as required. When authentication is requested, a PIN is presented by each side (generally entered by the operator, some limited input devices have a fixed PIN). The controller uses this PIN to generate a Link Key and reports this to the Host which may be asked to produce it to authenticate subsequent connections. On NetBSD, the bthcid(8) daemon is responsible for storing link keys and responding to Link Key Requests, and also provides an interface to allow unprivileged users to specify a PIN with a PIN client, such as btpin(1). 21.2. Supported Hardware Because Bluetooth controllers normally use the standard HCI protocol as specified in the "Bluetooth 2.0 Core" documentation to communicate with the host, the NetBSD Bluetooth stack is compatible with most controllers, only requiring an interface driver: * bcsp(4) provides a tty(4) line discipline to send and receive BlueCore Serial Protocol packets over a serial line as described in the "BlueCore Serial Protocol (BCSP)" specification. * bt3c(4) provides an interface to the 3Com Bluetooth PC Card, model 3CRWB6096-A. * btbc(4) provides support for the AnyCom BlueCard (LSE041, LSE039, LSE139) PCMCIA devices. * btuart(4) provides a tty(4) line discipline to send and receive Bluetooth packets over a serial line as described in the "Bluetooth Host Controller Interface [Transport Layer] specification, Vol 4 part A". * sbt(4) provides support for Secure Digital IO Bluetooth adapters. * ubt(4) interfaces to all USB Bluetooth controllers conforming to the "HCI USB Transport Layer" specification. If the hardware is supported by the NetBSD Bluetooth stack, autoconfiguration messages will show up in the dmesg output, for example: bt3c0 at pcmcia0 function 0: <3COM, 3CRWB60-A, Bluetooth PC Card> ubt0 at uhub1 port 4 configuration 1 interface 0 ubt0: Cambridge Silicon Radio Bluetooth USB Adapter, rev 2.00/19.58, addr 4 ubt1 at uhub1 port 2 configuration 1 interface 0 ubt1: Broadcom Belkin Bluetooth Device, rev 1.10/0.01, addr 5 When support is not already compiled in, it can be added to the kernel configuration file for any platform that supports USB and/or PCMCIA (see Section 19.9, "Kernel Tuning"), using the following declarations, as required: # Bluetooth Controller and Device support pseudo-device bcsp # BlueCore Serial Protocol pseudo-device btuart # Bluetooth HCI UART # Bluetooth PCMCIA Controllers bt3c* at pcmcia? function ? # 3Com 3CRWB6096-A btbc* at pcmcia? function ? # AnyCom BlueCard LSE041/039/139 # Bluetooth SDIO Controllers sbt* at sdmmc? # Bluetooth USB Controllers ubt* at uhub? port ? # Bluetooth Device Hub bthub* at bcsp? bthub* at bt3c? bthub* at btbc? bthub* at btuart? bthub* at sbt? bthub* at ubt? # Bluetooth HID support bthidev* at bthub? # Bluetooth Mouse btms* at bthidev? reportid ? wsmouse* at btms? mux 0 # Bluetooth Keyboard btkbd* at bthidev? reportid ? wskbd* at btkbd? console ? mux 1 # Bluetooth Audio support btsco* at bthub? Some older USB Bluetooth dongles based on the Broadcom BCM2033 chip require firmware to be loaded before they can function, and these devices will be attached to ugen(4). Use the "sysutils/bcmfw" package from the NetBSD Package Collection, to load firmware and enable these. 21.3. System Configuration To fully enable Bluetooth services on NetBSD, the following line should be added to the /etc/rc.conf file. bluetooth=YES and either reboot, or execute the following command: # /etc/rc.d/bluetooth start Configuration of Bluetooth controllers is done with the btconfig(8) program, and the above argument enables only basic functionality, see the manual page for other useful options. The extra options for btconfig on a given device, say utb0, can be set by adding a line for it to the /etc/rc.conf file. btconfig_ubt0="name MyComputerName" Important bthcid(8) must be running in order to make authenticated connections with remote devices, and authentication may be requested by either device. 21.4. Human Interface Devices Support for "Human Interface Devices" (HIDs), which operate using the USB HID protocol over a pair of L2CAP channels is provided by the bthidev(4) driver. Currently, keyboards and mice are catered for, and attach to wscons(4) as normal. 21.4.1. Mice Bluetooth Mice can be attached to the system with the btms(4) driver, using btdevctl(8). First, you must discover the BDADDR of the device. This may be printed on the box, but the easiest way is to place the device into discoverable mode and perform a device inquiry with the appropriate controller: % btconfig ubt0 inquiry Device Discovery on ubt0 .... 1 response 1: bdaddr 00:14:51:c1:b9:2d (unknown) : name "Mighty Mouse" : class: [0x002580] Peripheral Mouse : page scan rep mode 0x01 : page scan period mode 0x02 : page scan mode 0x00 : clock offset 6944 For ease of use, you may want to add the address to the /etc/bluetooth/hosts file, so that you can refer to the mouse by alias: # echo "00:14:51:c1:b9:2d mouse" >>/etc/bluetooth/hosts Now, you can query the mouse, which will likely request authentication before it accepts connections. The fixed PIN should be listed in the documentation, though "0000" is often used. Set the PIN first using the btpin(1) program: % btpin -d ubt0 -a mouse -p 0000 # btdevctl -d ubt0 -a mouse -s HID local bdaddr: 00:08:1b:8d:ba:6d remote bdaddr: 00:14:51:c1:b9:2d link mode: auth device type: bthidev control psm: 0x0011 interrupt psm: 0x0013 Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Mouse Input id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_1 Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_2 Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_3 Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=2 size=1 count=1 page=Button usage=Button_4 Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=2 size=4 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const Variable, logical range 0..1 Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Pointer Input id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=X Variable Relative, logical range -127..127 Input id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=Y Variable Relative, logical range -127..127 Input id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Consumer usage=AC_Pan Variable Relative, logical range -127..127 Input id=2 size=8 count=1 page=Generic_Desktop usage=Wheel Variable Relative, logical range -127..127 End collection Input id=2 size=8 count=1 page=0x00ff usage=0x00c0 Variable, logical range -127..127 Feature id=71 size=8 count=1 page=0x0006 usage=0x0020 Variable NoPref Volatile, logical range 0..100 End collection This tells you that the mouse has responded to an SDP query, and the device capabilities are shown. Note that authentication is enabled by default for Bluetooth mice. You may now attach to the system: # btdevctl -d ubt0 -a mouse -s HID -A which should generate some messages on the system console: bthidev0 at bthub0 remote-bdaddr 00:14:51:c1:b9:2d link-mode auth btms0 at bthidev1 reportid 2: 4 buttons, W and Z dirs. wsmouse1 at btms0 mux 0 bthidev1: reportid 71 not configured bthidev1: connected and the mouse should work. The device capabilities are cached by btdevctl(8), and to reattach the mouse at system startup, place an entry in /etc/bluetooth/btdevctl.conf. The bthidev(4) driver will attempt to connect once, though mice will usually be sleeping and may require a tap on the shoulder to awaken, in which case they should initiate the connection to the host computer. 21.4.2. Keyboards Bluetooth Keyboards can be attached to the system with the btkbd(4) driver, using btdevctl(8). First, you must discover the BDADDR of the device. This may be printed on the box, but the easiest way is to place the device into discoverable mode and perform a device inquiry with the appropriate controller: % btconfig ubt0 inquiry Device Discovery on ubt0 .... 1 response 1: bdaddr 00:0a:95:45:a4:a0 (unknown) : name "Apple Wireless Keyboard" : class: [0x002540] Peripheral Keyboard : page scan rep mode 0x01 : page scan period mode 0x00 : page scan mode 0x00 : clock offset 18604 For ease of use, you may want to add the address to the /etc/bluetooth/hosts file, so that you can refer to the keyboard by alias: # echo "00:0a:95:45:a4:a0 keyboard" >>/etc/bluetooth/hosts Now, you can query the keyboard, which will likely request authentication before it accepts connections. The PIN will need to be entered on the keyboard, and we can generate a random PIN, using the btpin(1) program. % btpin -d ubt0 -a keyboard -r -l 8 PIN: 18799632 # btdevctl -d ubt0 -a keyboard -s HID < ENTER PIN ON BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD NOW > local bdaddr: 00:08:1b:8d:ba:6d remote bdaddr: 00:0a:95:45:a4:a0 link mode: encrypt device type: bthidev control psm: 0x0011 interrupt psm: 0x0013 Collection page=Generic_Desktop usage=Keyboard Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_LeftControl Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_LeftShift Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_LeftAlt Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_Left_GUI Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_RightControl Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_RightShift Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_RightAlt Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Keyboard usage=Keyboard_Right_GUI Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=8 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=1 count=1 page=LEDs usage=Num_Lock Variable, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=1 count=1 page=LEDs usage=Caps_Lock Variable, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=1 count=1 page=LEDs usage=Scroll_Lock Variable, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=1 count=1 page=LEDs usage=Compose Variable, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=1 count=1 page=LEDs usage=Kana Variable, logical range 0..1 Output id=1 size=3 count=1 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=8 count=6 page=Keyboard usage=No_Event, logical range 0..255 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Consumer usage=Eject Variable Relative, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Consumer usage=Mute Variable Relative, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Consumer usage=Volume_Up Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=1 page=Consumer usage=Volume_Down Variable, logical range 0..1 Input id=1 size=1 count=4 page=0x0000 usage=0x0000 Const, logical range 0..1 End collection This tells you that the keyboard has responded to an SDP query, and the device capabilities are shown. Note that encryption is enabled by default, since encrypted connection support is mandatory for Bluetooth keyboards. You may now attach to the system: # btdevctl -d ubt0 -a keyboard -s HID -A which should generate some messages on the system console: bthidev1 at bthub0 remote-bdaddr 00:0a:95:45:a4:a0 link-mode encrypt btkbd0 at bthidev0 reportid 1 wskbd1 at btkbd0 mux 1 wskbd1: connecting to wsdisplay0 bthidev1: connected and the keyboard should work. The device capabilities are cached by btdevctl(8), and to reattach the keyboard at system startup, place an entry in /etc/bluetooth/btdevctl.conf. The bthidev (4) driver will attempt to connect once when attached, but if the keyboard is not available at that time, you may find that pressing a key will cause it to wake up and initiate a connection to the last paired host. 21.5. Personal Area Networking Personal Area Networking services over Bluetooth are provided by the btpand(8) daemon which can assume all roles from the PAN profile and connects remote devices to the system through a tap(4) virtual Ethernet interface. 21.5.1. Personal Area Networking User The "Personal Area Networking User" role is the client that accesses Network services on another device. For instance, in order to connect to the Internet via a smart phone with the NAP profile, make sure that the phone is discoverable, then: % btconfig ubt0 inquiry Device Discovery from device: ubt0 .... 1 response 1: bdaddr 00:17:83:30:bd:5e (unknown) : name "HTC Touch" : class: [0x5a020c] Smart Phone : page scan rep mode 0x01 : clock offset 9769 : rssi -42 # echo "00:17:83:30:bd:5e phone" >>/etc/bluetooth/hosts You will see that the phone should have the flag set in the Class of Device. Checking for the NAP service: % sdpquery -a phone search NAP ServiceRecordHandle: 0x00010000 ServiceClassIDList: Network Access Point ProtocolDescriptorList: L2CAP (PSM 0x000f) BNEP (v1.0; IPv4, ARP, IPv6) LanguageBaseAttributeIDList: en.UTF-8 base 0x0100 BluetoothProfileDescriptorList: Network Access Point, v1.0 ServiceName: "Network Access Point" ServiceDescription: "Bluetooth NAP Service" SecurityDescription: None NetAccessType: 100Mb Ethernet MaxNetAccessRate: 100000 reveals that the NAP service is available and that it provides IPv4, ARP and IPv6 protocols. Most likely, the phone will request authentication before it allows connections to the NAP service, so before you make the first connection you may need to provide a PIN, which can be randomly generated. Then start btpand(8): % btpin -d ubt0 -a phone -r -l 6 PIN: 862048 # btpand -d ubt0 -a phone -s NAP < ENTER PIN ON PHONE NOW > Searching for NAP service at 00:17:83:30:bd:5e Found PSM 15 for service NAP Opening connection to service 0x1116 at 00:17:83:30:bd:5e Using interface tap0 with addr 00:10:60:e1:50:3d Finally, you will need to configure the tap(4) interface, but the phone should have a DHCP server so dhcpcd(8) will do that for you. # dhcpcd tap0 Now you can surf the World Wide Web, but watch your data usage unless you have a comprehensive data plan. 21.6. Serial Connections Serial connections over Bluetooth are provided for by the RFCOMM protocol, which provides up to 30 channels multiplexed over a single L2CAP channel. This streamed data protocol can be accessed using the BTPROTO_RFCOMM socket interface, or via the rfcomm_sppd(1) program. For instance, you can make a serial connection to the "Dial Up Networking" (DUN) service of a mobile phone in order to connect to the Internet with PPP. First you should discover the BDADDR of the phone, and add this to your /etc/ bluetooth/hosts for ease of use. Place the phone into Discoverable mode, and perform an inquiry from the appropriate controller: % btconfig ubt0 inquiry Device Discovery from device: ubt0 ..... 1 response 1: bdaddr 00:16:bc:00:e8:48 (unknown) : name "Nokia 6103" : class: [0x520204] Cellular Phone : page scan rep mode 0x01 : page scan period mode 0x02 : page scan mode 0x00 : clock offset 30269 # echo "00:16:bc:00:e8:48 phone" >>/etc/bluetooth/hosts Now, you can query the phone to confirm that it supports the DUN profile: % sdpquery -d ubt0 -a phone search DUN ServiceRecordHandle: 0x00010003 ServiceClassIDList: Dialup Networking Generic Networking ProtocolDescriptorList: L2CAP RFCOMM (channel 1) BrowseGroupList: Public Browse Root LanguageBaseAttributeIDList: en.UTF-8 base 0x0100 BluetoothProfileDescriptorList: Dialup Networking, v1.0 ServiceName: "Dial-up networking" Most likely, the phone will request authentication before it allows connections to the DUN service, so before you make the first connection you may need to provide a PIN, which can be randomly generated. You can use rfcomm_sppd in stdio mode to check that the connection is working ok, press ^C to disconnect and return to the shell, for example: % btpin -d ubt0 -a phone -r -l 6 PIN: 904046 % rfcomm_sppd -d ubt0 -a phone -s DUN < ENTER PIN ON PHONE NOW > rfcomm_sppd[24635]: Starting on stdio... at OK ati Nokia OK ati3 Nokia 6103 OK at&v ACTIVE PROFILE: E1 Q0 V1 X5 &C1 &D2 &S0 &Y0 +CMEE=0 +CSTA=129 +CBST=0,0,1 +CRLP=61,61,48,6 +CR=0 +CRC=0 +CLIP=0,2 +CLIR=0,2 +CSNS=0 +CVHU=1 +DS=0,0,2048,32 +DR=0 +ILRR=0 +CHSN=0,0,0,0 +CHSR=0 +CPBS="SM" S00:000 S01:000 S02:043 S03:013 S04:010 S05:008 S07:060 S08:002 S10:100 S12:050 S25:000 OK ^C rfcomm_sppd[24635]: Completed on stdio To have pppd(8) connect to the DUN service of your phone automatically when making outbound connections, add the following line to the /etc/ppp/options file in place of the normal tty declaration: pty "rfcomm_sppd -d ubt0 -a phone -s DUN -m encrypt" 21.7. Audio Isochronous (SCO) Audio connections may be created on a baseband radio link using either the BTPROTO_SCO socket interface, or the btsco(4) audio device driver. While the specification says that up to three such links can be made between devices, the current Bluetooth stack can only handle one with any dignity. Important When using SCO Audio with USB Bluetooth controllers, you will need to enable isochronous data, and calculate the MTU that the device will use, see ubt(4) and btconfig(8). Note SCO Audio does not work properly with the bt3c(4) driver, use a USB controller for best results. 21.7.1. SCO Audio Headsets Audio connections to Bluetooth Headsets are possible using the btsco(4) audio driver, and the bthset(1) program. First, you need to discover the BDADDR of the headset, and will probably wish to make an alias in your /etc/bluetooth/ hosts file for ease of use. Place the headset into discoverable mode and perform an inquiry with the appropriate controller: % btconfig ubt0 inquiry Device Discovery from device: ubt0 ..... 1 response 1: bdaddr 00:07:a4:23:10:83 (unknown) : name "JABRA 250" : class: [0x200404] Wearable Headset