OpenBSD Notes

• c0ffee.net: openbsd on a laptop
• paedubucher.ch: OpenBSD on the desktop pt1
• paedubucher.ch: OpenBSD on the desktop pt2

These are setup notes for setting up an OpenBSD workstation

• OpenBSD FAQ: Disks and Partitions
• IDE drives are usually wd* and SCSI drives are usually sd*
• Drive numbers come after the drive type
• Drives are numbered according to how they are discovered at boot
• Use sysctl hw.disknames to see a list of hard disk names
• disklabel is used to manage partitions
• A given disk can have up to 16 label partitions that use the letters a - p
• Some labels are special
  • The boot disk's root partition is always a
  • The boot disk's swap partition is always b
  • The c partition is always the entire disk
• Disks have 16 digit random hex strings that serve as the Disklabel Unique Identifiers (DUIDs)
• sysctl hw.disknames lists these
• The fstab uses the DUIDs when specifying disks

• 1 - General Commands
• 2 - System Calls
• 3 - Library Functions
• 3p - Perl Library Functions
• 4 - Device Drivers
• 5 - File Formats
• 6 - Games
• 7 - Miscellaneous Information
• 8 - System Manager's Manual
• 9 - Kernel Developer's Manual

• OpenBSD man page: rcctl(8)
• Use rcctl ls on to view a list of all running services
• Use rcctl enable <SERVICE> to enable a service, this is the same as rcctl set <SERVICE> status on

• OpenBSD man page: doas.conf(5)
• doas is the OpenBSD equivalent of sudo
• The su command works on OpenBSD just like other Unices
• Create the file /etc/doas.conf to enable doas
• Add the following line to enable doas for the wheel group and persist the password for a bit:
  • permit persist :wheel

• OpenBSD man page: apm(8)
• Use the command apm to see the current power status, this will include the battery level
• apmd will need to be enabled with: rcctl enable apmd
• To set the apmd to automatically manage the power level set the flag on apmd to -A with rcctl set apmd flags -A
• You might need to restart for changes to apmd to take effect
• Use the zzz command to be the computer into suspend state

• OpenBSD FAQ: Package Management
• To search for a package run pkg_info -Q <SOME_PACKAGE>
• To install a package run pkg_add <SOME_PACKAGE>
• pkg_add -u will update all installed packages
• To delete a package run pkg_delete <SOME_PACKAGE>
• There might be dependecies still installed that are no longer needed, to remove them run pkg_delete -a
• Sometimes individual packages have a readme that explains some info related to using it on OpenBSD
• Those readme files are in /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/

• You might need to disable fsWatcherEnabled in the ~/.config/syncthing/config.xml file after you have added shares

• Inside the /etc/X11/xenodm/Xsetup_0 file comment out line with xconsole
• You can also change the xsetroot command to change the default background

• Lars Ingebrigsten: Building the Development Version of Emacs on OpenBSD (6.7)
• To build Emacs on OpenBSD ensure the following packages are installed:
  • git
  • autoconf
  • automake
  • gnutls
  • gmake
  • gcc
  • texinfo
• Add all the dependencies that the emacs package needs: pkg_add `pkg_info -f emacs | grep ^@depend | sed 's/^.*://'`
• Once the emacs source is clone set the autoconf version to the newly installed one, export AUTOCONF_VERSION=2.71
• Tell emacs to use gmakeinfo instead of the one OpenBSD ships with, export MAKEINFO=gmakeinfo
• You should now be able to run ./autogen.sh
• After that is complete run configure like so: CC=egcc ./configure --with-json
• OpenBSD does not have a port of libgccjit so for now omit --with-native-compilation

• When you login the .xsession script is run
• In this script you would want to setup any environment variables you need

• OpenBSD ships with its own version of the POSIX tools
• Sometimes those versions do not work the same as the GNU versions which are standard on Linux
• You can still install the GNU tools from the package manager
• The GNU versions typically have a prefix like g or e, for instance the GNU version of gcc is egcc and the GNU version of grep is ggrep
• A simple solution to prefer the GNU version over the standard is to add a local search path like $HOME/.local/bin to the beginning of your PATH environment variable
• In your local bin folder symlink the prefixed GNU tool with the standard tool

mkdir -p $HOME/.local/bin
cd $HOME/.local/bin
ln -s /usr/local/bin/ggrep grep

• OpenBSD man page: DHCP
• OpenBSD man page: dhcp.conf
• Below is an example template of a dhcpd.conf

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
       option routers 192.168.1.1; # Gateway IP
       option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
       range 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.254; # Dynamic IP Range
       host lan-host-1 { # Static IP for some host
            fixed-address 192.168.6.2;
            hardware ethernet 01:02:03:04:05:06;
       }
       host lan-host-2 { # Another Static IP for some host
            fixed-address 192.168.6.3;
            hardware ethernet 02:03:04:05:06:07;
       }
}

• Once you are finished editing the dhcpd.conf restart the service with rcctl restart dhcpd
• To view the current dhcp leases from the server view /var/db/dhcpd.leases

• OpenBSD Handbook PF Cheat Sheet
• Use pfctl -n -f /etc/pf.conf to test new rules
• Use pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf to load rules
• Use pfctl -s rules to view the current rules

• To bring up the font menu hold control and left click
• From this menu you can select a font size