The NetBSD Guide
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The NetBSD Guide

The NetBSD Developers

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: 2008/02/19 18:52:52

$NetBSD: index.html,v 1.41 2009/09/21 02:24:40 snj 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. Choosing the installation media

3.10.1. Installing from CD-ROM or DVD
3.10.2. Installing from an unmounted file system
3.10.3. Installing via FTP
3.10.4. Installing via NFS

3.11. Extracting sets

3.12. System configuration

3.13. Finishing the installation

4. Upgrading NetBSD

4.1. Overview
4.2. The INSTALL document
4.3. Performing the upgrade

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
7.3. 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

8.2. pccons

9. X

9.1. What is X?

9.2. Configuration

9.3. The mouse

9.4. The keyboard

9.5. The monitor

9.6. The video card

9.6.1. XFree 3.x
9.6.2. XFree86 4.x

9.7. Starting X

9.8. Customizing X

9.9. Other window managers

9.10. Graphical login with xdm

10. Linux emulation

10.1. Emulation setup

10.1.1. Configuring the kernel
10.1.2. Installing the Linux libraries
10.1.3. Installing Acrobat Reader

10.2. Directory structure

10.3. Emulating /proc

10.4. Using Linux browser plugins

10.5. Further reading

11. Audio

11.1. Basic hardware elements

11.2. BIOS settings

11.3. Configuring the audio device

11.4. Configuring the kernel audio devices

11.5. Advanced commands

11.5.1. audioctl(1)
11.5.2. mixerctl(1)
11.5.3. audioplay(1)
11.5.4. audiorecord(1)

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 floppy disks
13.2. How to use a ZIP disk
13.3. Reading data CDs with NetBSD
13.4. Reading multi-session CDs with NetBSD
13.5. Allowing normal users to access CDs
13.6. Mounting an ISO image
13.7. Using video CDs with NetBSD
13.8. Using audio CDs with NetBSD
13.9. Creating an MP3 (MPEG layer 3) file from an audio CD
13.10. Using a CD-R writer with data CDs
13.11. Using a CD-R writer to create audio CDs
13.12. Creating an audio CD from MP3s
13.13. Copying an audio CD
13.14. Copying a data CD with two drives
13.15. Using CD-RW rewritables
13.16. DVD support
13.17. Creating ISO images from a CD
13.18. 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. 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. Introduction
14.4.2. Creating an encrypted CD/DVD
14.4.3. Using an encrypted CD/DVD

14.5. Suggestions and Warnings

14.5.1. Using a random-key cgd for swap
14.5.2. Warnings

14.6. 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. Setting up kernel dumps
16.3.8. Migrating System to RAID
16.3.9. The first boot with RAID
16.3.10. Adding Disk0/wd0 to RAID
16.3.11. Testing Boot Blocks

16.4. Testing kernel dumps

17. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

17.1. About

17.2. Introduction

17.3. Terms and conventions

17.3.1. Definitions
17.3.2. Usage examples

17.4. PAM Essentials

17.4.1. Facilities and primitives
17.4.2. Modules
17.4.3. Chains and policies
17.4.4. Transactions

17.5. PAM Configuration

17.5.1. PAM policy files
17.5.2. Breakdown of a configuration line
17.5.3. Policies

17.6. PAM modules

17.6.1. Common Modules
17.6.2. FreeBSD-specific PAM Modules
17.6.3. NetBSD-specific PAM Modules

17.7. PAM Application Programming

17.8. PAM Module Programming

17.9. Sample PAM Application

17.10. Sample PAM Module

17.11. Sample PAM Conversation Function

17.12. Further Reading

18. Tuning NetBSD

18.1. Introduction

18.1.1. Overview

18.2. Tuning Considerations

18.2.1. General System Configuration
18.2.2. System Services
18.2.3. The NetBSD Kernel

18.3. Visual Monitoring Tools

18.3.1. The top Process Monitor
18.3.2. The sysstat utility

18.4. Monitoring Tools

18.4.1. fstat
18.4.2. iostat
18.4.3. ps
18.4.4. vmstat

18.5. Network Tools

18.5.1. ping
18.5.2. traceroute
18.5.3. netstat
18.5.4. tcpdump

18.6. Accounting

18.6.1. Accounting
18.6.2. Reading Accounting Information
18.6.3. How to Put Accounting to Use

18.7. Kernel Profiling

18.7.1. Getting Started
18.7.2. Interpretation of kgmon Output
18.7.3. Putting it to Use
18.7.4. Summary

18.8. System Tuning

18.8.1. Using sysctl
18.8.2. memfs & softdeps
18.8.3. LFS

18.9. Kernel Tuning

18.9.1. Preparing to Recompile a Kernel
18.9.2. Configuring the Kernel
18.9.3. Building the New Kernel
18.9.4. Shrinking the NetBSD kernel

19. NetBSD Veriexec subsystem

19.1. How it works
19.2. Signatures file
19.3. Generating fingerprints
19.4. Strict levels
19.5. Veriexec and layered file systems
19.6. Kernel configuration

20. Bluetooth on NetBSD

20.1. Introduction

20.2. Supported Hardware

20.3. System Configuration

20.4. Human Interface Devices

20.4.1. Mice
20.4.2. Keyboards

20.5. Personal Area Networking

20.5.1. Personal Area Networking User

20.6. Serial Connections

20.7. Audio

20.7.1. SCO Audio Headsets
20.7.2. SCO Audio Handsfree

20.8. Object Exchange

20.9. Troubleshooting

21. Miscellaneous operations

21.1. Installing the boot manager
21.2. Deleting the disklabel
21.3. Speaker
21.4. Forgot root password?
21.5. Password file is busy?
21.6. Adding a new hard disk
21.7. How to rebuild the devices in /dev

IV. Networking and related issues

22. Introduction to TCP/IP Networking

22.1. Audience

22.2. Supported Networking Protocols

22.3. Supported Media

22.3.1. Serial Line
22.3.2. Ethernet

22.4. TCP/IP Address Format

22.5. Subnetting and Routing

22.6. Name Service Concepts

22.6.1. /etc/hosts
22.6.2. Domain Name Service (DNS)
22.6.3. Network Information Service (NIS/YP)
22.6.4. Other

22.7. Next generation Internet protocol - IPv6

22.7.1. The Future of the Internet
22.7.2. What good is IPv6?
22.7.3. Changes to IPv4

23. Setting up TCP/IP on NetBSD in practice

23.1. A walk through the kernel configuration

23.2. Overview of the network configuration files

23.3. Connecting to the Internet with a modem

23.3.1. Getting the connection information
23.3.2. resolv.conf and nsswitch.conf
23.3.3. Creating the directories for pppd
23.3.4. Connection script and chat file
23.3.5. Authentication
23.3.6. pppd options
23.3.7. Testing the modem
23.3.8. Activating the link
23.3.9. Using a script for connection and disconnection
23.3.10. Running commands after dialin

23.4. Creating a small home network

23.5. Setting up an Internet gateway with IPNAT

23.5.1. Configuring the gateway/firewall
23.5.2. Configuring the clients
23.5.3. Some useful commands

23.6. Setting up a network bridge device

23.6.1. Bridge example

23.7. A common LAN setup

23.8. Connecting two PCs through a serial line

23.8.1. Connecting NetBSD with BSD or Linux
23.8.2. Connecting NetBSD and Windows NT
23.8.3. Connecting NetBSD and Windows 95

23.9. IPv6 Connectivity & Transition via 6to4

23.9.1. Getting 6to4 IPv6 up & running
23.9.2. Obtaining IPv6 Address Space for 6to4
23.9.3. How to get connected
23.9.4. Security Considerations
23.9.5. Data Needed for 6to4 Setup
23.9.6. Kernel Preparation
23.9.7. 6to4 Setup
23.9.8. Quickstart using pkgsrc/net/hf6to4
23.9.9. Known 6to4 Relay Routers
23.9.10. Tunneling 6to4 through an IPFilter firewall
23.9.11. Conclusion & Further Reading

24. The Internet Super Server inetd

24.1. Overview
24.2. What is inetd?
24.3. Configuring inetd - /etc/inetd.conf
24.4. Services - /etc/services
24.5. Protocols - /etc/protocols
24.6. Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) - /etc/rpc
24.7. Allowing and denying hosts - /etc/hosts.{allow,deny}
24.8. Adding a Service
24.9. When to use or not to use inetd
24.10. Other Resources

25. The Domain Name System

25.1. DNS Background and Concepts

25.1.1. Naming Services
25.1.2. The DNS namespace
25.1.3. Resource Records
25.1.4. Delegation
25.1.5. Delegation to multiple servers
25.1.6. Secondaries, Caching, and the SOA record
25.1.7. Name Resolution
25.1.8. Reverse Resolution

25.2. The DNS Files

25.2.1. /etc/namedb/named.conf
25.2.2. /etc/namedb/localhost
25.2.3. /etc/namedb/zone.127.0.0
25.2.4. /etc/namedb/diverge.org
25.2.5. /etc/namedb/1.168.192
25.2.6. /etc/namedb/root.cache

25.3. Using DNS

25.4. Setting up a caching only name server

25.4.1. Testing the server

26. Mail and news

26.1. postfix

26.1.1. Configuration of generic mapping
26.1.2. Testing the configuration
26.1.3. Using an alternative MTA

26.2. fetchmail

26.3. Reading and writing mail with mutt

26.4. Strategy for receiving mail

26.5. Strategy for sending mail

26.6. Advanced mail tools

26.7. News with tin

27. Introduction to the Common Address Redundancy Protocol (CARP)

27.1. CARP Operation
27.2. Configuring CARP
27.3. Enabling CARP Support
27.4. CARP Example
27.5. Advanced CARP configuration
27.6. Forcing Failover of the Master

28. Network services

28.1. The Network File System (NFS)

28.1.1. NFS setup example
28.1.2. Setting up NFS automounting for /net with amd(8)

28.2. The Network Time Protocol (NTP)

V. Building the system

29. Obtaining the sources

29.1. Preparing directories

29.2. Terminology

29.3. Downloading tarballs

29.3.1. Downloading sources for a NetBSD release
29.3.2. Downloading sources for a NetBSD stable branch
29.3.3. Downloading sources for a NetBSD-current development branch

29.4. Fetching by CVS

29.4.1. Fetching a NetBSD release
29.4.2. Fetching a NetBSD stable branch
29.4.3. Fetching the NetBSD-current development branch
29.4.4. Saving some cvs(1) options

29.5. Sources on CD (ISO)

30. Crosscompiling NetBSD with build.sh

30.1. Building the crosscompiler

30.2. Configuring the kernel manually

30.3. Crosscompiling the kernel manually

30.4. Crosscompiling the kernel with build.sh

30.5. Crosscompiling the userland

30.6. Crosscompiling the X Window System

30.7. Changing build behaviour

30.7.1. Changing the Destination Directory
30.7.2. Static Builds
30.7.3. Using build.sh options
30.7.4. make(1) variables used during build

31. Compiling the kernel

31.1. Requirements and procedure

31.2. Installing the kernel sources

31.3. Creating the kernel configuration file

31.4. Building the kernel manually

31.4.1. Configuring the kernel manually
31.4.2. Generating dependencies and recompiling manually

31.5. Building the kernel using build.sh

31.6. Installing the new kernel

31.7. If something went wrong

32. Updating an existing system from sources

32.1. The updating procedure

32.1.1. Building a new userland
32.1.2. Building a new kernel
32.1.3. Installing the kernel and userland
32.1.4. Updating the system configuration files
32.1.5. Summary
32.1.6. Alternative: using sysinst

32.2. More details about the updating of configuration and startup files

32.2.1. Using etcupdate with source files
32.2.2. Using etcupdate with binary distribution sets
32.2.3. Using etcmanage instead of etcupdate

33. Building NetBSD installation media

33.1. Creating custom install or boot floppies for your architecture e.g. i386
33.2. Creating a custom install or boot CD with build.sh

A. Information

A.1. Where to get this document
A.2. Guide history

B. Contributing to the NetBSD guide

B.1. Translating the guide

B.1.1. What you need to start a translation
B.1.2. Writing XML/DocBook

B.2. Sending contributions

B.3. 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. Language-specific notes

C.4.1. Enabling hyphenation for the Italian language

C.5. 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. Full or custom installation
3.7. Selecting distribution sets
3.8. Choosing the partitioning scheme
3.9. fdisk
3.10. Partition options
3.11. Installing the boot selector
3.12. Edit partitions?
3.13. Setting partition sizes
3.14. The disklabel editor
3.15. Disklabel partition editing
3.16. Naming the NetBSD disk
3.17. Last chance to abort
3.18. Selecting bootblocks
3.19. Choosing the verbosity of the extraction process
3.20. Installation media
3.21. CD-ROM/DVD installation
3.22. Mounting a file system
3.23. Mounting a partition
3.24. Accessing a MSDOS file system
3.25. Which network interface to configure
3.26. Using DHCP for network configuration
3.27. Entering and configuring network data
3.28. Confirming network parameters
3.29. Defining the FTP settings
3.30. NFS install screen
3.31. NFS example
3.32. Extraction of sets completed
3.33. Selecting the system's time zone
3.34. Selecting a password encryption scheme
3.35. Set a root password?
3.36. Setting root password
3.37. Choosing a shell
3.38. Installation completed
3.39. Reboot to finish installation
4.1. Starting the upgrade
4.2. Continuing the upgrade
4.3. Choosing the hard drive
4.4. Choosing the distribution filesets
4.5. File system check
4.6. Choosing bootblocks
4.7. Upgrade process - verbosity level
4.8. Install medium
4.9. 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
22.1. IPv4-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits
22.2. Our demo-network
22.3. Attaching one subnet to another one
22.4. IPv6-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits, too
22.5. IPv6-addresses have a similar structure to class B addresses
22.6. Several interfaces attached to a link result in only one scope ID for the link
23.1. Network with gateway
23.2. A frequently used method for transition is tunneling IPv6 in IPv4 packets
23.3. 6to4 derives an IPv6 from an IPv4 address
23.4. Request and reply can be routed via different gateways in 6to4
23.5. Enabling packet forwarding is needed for a 6to4 router
26.1. Structure of the mail system

List of Tables

17.1. PAM chain execution summary
19.1. Veriexec fingerprints tools
19.2. Veriexec access type aliases

List of Examples

12.1. /etc/printcap
12.2. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter
12.3. /etc/printcap
12.4. /usr/local/libexec/lpfilter-ps
23.1. resolv.conf
23.2. nsswitch.conf
23.3. Connection script
23.4. Chat file
23.5. Chat file with login
23.6. /etc/ppp/options
23.7. ppp-start
23.8. ppp-stop
23.9. /etc/hosts
25.1. strider's /etc/hosts file
25.2. localhost
29.1. .cvsrc