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: 2024/01/01 06:49:50

$NetBSD: index.html,v 1.310 2024/12/18 19:55:00 martin 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

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