INSTALLATION NOTES for OpenBSD/i386 2.0 What is OpenBSD? ---------------- OpenBSD is a Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2) and 4.4BSD-Lite -derived Operating System. It is a fully functional UN*X-like system which runs on many architectures and is being ported to more. Continuing the multi-platform tradition, OpenBSD has added ports to mvme68k and arc machines. Kernel interfaces have continued to be refined, and now several subsystems and device drivers are shared among the different ports. You can look for this trend to continue. Security of the system as a whole has been significantly improved. Source code for all critical system components has been checked for remote-access, local-access, denial-of-service, data destruction, or information-gathering problems. OpenBSD 2.0 has significantly enhanced the binary emulation subsystem (which includes iBCS2, Linux, OSF/1, SunOS, SVR4, Solaris and Ultrix compatibility) and several kernel subsystems have been generalized to support this more readily. The binary emulation strategy is aimed at making the emulation as accurate as possible. Cryptography components are part of OpenBSD. OpenBSD is from Canada, and export of these pieces (such as kerberosIV) to the world is not restricted. Many new user programs have been added in OpenBSD 2.0, as well, bringing it closer to our goal of supplying a complete UN*X-like environment. Tools like perl and ksh are standard, as are numerous other useful tools. For the i386, OpenBSD 2.0 brings greatly improved performance, stability, and device support. Emulation for several UN*X and UN*X like operating systems, including Linux and FreeBSD, has been added. Many new PCI devices are supported, such as cards based on the AMD PCnet-PCI Ethernet chip, the Digital DC21x4x family of Ethernet chips, and the Adaptec AIC7870 SCSI host adapter chip. Some drivers such as "ccd" which previously only worked on other ports of OpenBSD now work on the i386 port. Though still not known to be entirely stable, the "ncr" driver for 53c8xx-series SCSI adapters has had substantial bugs and performance issues resolved. Sources of OpenBSD: ------------------- Host name Services Provided ---- ---- -------- -------- If you wish to become a distribution site for OpenBSD, contact mirrors@openbsd.org. OpenBSD 2.0 Release Contents: ----------------------------- The OpenBSD 2.0 release is organized in the following way: .../2.0/ src/ Source distribution sets; see below. In addition to the files and directories listed above, there is one directory per architecture, for each of the architectures that OpenBSD 2.0 has a binary distribution for. (That is described further along in this document). The source distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the "source" subdirectory of the distribution tree. They contain the complete sources to the system. The source distribution sets are as follows: gsrc20 This set contains the "gnu" sources, including the source for the compiler, assembler, groff, and the other GNU utilities in the binary distribution sets. [ 7.1M gzipped, 30.4M uncompressed ] ksrc20 This set contains the sources to the OpenBSD 2.0 kernel, config(8), config.old(8) and dbsym(8). [ 6.0M gzipped, 27.0M uncompressed ] ssrc20 This set contains the "share" sources, which include the sources for the man pages not associated with any particular program, the sources for the typesettable document set, the dictionaries, and more. [ 2.4M gzipped, 8.9M uncompressed ] src20 This set contains all of the OpenBSD 2.0 sources which are not mentioned above. [ 9.3M gzipped, 41.6M uncompressed ] It is worth noting that unless all of the source distribution sets are installed (except the domestic set), you can't rebuild and install the system from scratch, straight out of the box. However, all that is required to rebuild the system in that case is a trivial modification to one Makefile. The source distribution sets are distributed as groups of files named "set_name.xx" where "set_name" is the distribution set name, and "xx" is the sequence number of the file, starting with "aa" for the first file in the distribution set, then "ab" for the next, and so on. All of these files except the last one of each set should be exactly 240,640 bytes long. (The last file is just long enough to contain the remainder of the data for that distribution set.) Catted together, the files belonging to a source distribution set comprise a gzipped tar file. If you want to look at list of the files contained in the set, you could use the command: cd /usr/src; cat set_name.?? | tar tvfz - or to actually extract the files contained in the set: cd /usr/src; cat set_name.?? | tar xfpz - In each of the source distribution set directories, there are two files named "CKSUMS" and "MD5" which contain the checksums of the files in that directory, as generated by the cksum(1) and md5(1) utilities respectively. If you suspect that one of the files is corrupt and have access to a cksum or md5 binary, you can compare their output to the "CKSUMS" or "MD5" file. The i386-specific portion of the OpenBSD 2.0 release is found in the "i386" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is laid out as follows: .../2.0/i386/ INSTALL.i386 Installation notes; this file. bins/ i386 binary distribution sets; see below. floppies/ i386 boot and installation floppies; see below. utils/ Miscellaneous i386 installation utilities; see installation section, below. There are four i386 floppy images to be found in the "i386/floppy" subdirectory of the OpenBSD 2.0 distribution. Two of them are bootable kernel-copy floppies, one is an installation floppy, and one is an upgrade floppy. They are all described in more detail below. There are gzipped versions of each available, for easier downloading. (The gzipped versions have the ".gz" extension added to their names.) Bootable Kernel-copy floppies: These disks contain file systems, are bootable, and have enough utilities on board to copy a new kernel to your hard disk once you have it partitioned for OpenBSD. They make upgrading to a new kernel easy, because all you have to do is get a new kernel-copy floppy with a new kernel, boot from it, and confirm that you want to have the kernel copied to your disk. Please note that because of space considerations the kernel copy floppies no longer contain drivers that are not needed during installation -- in particular, no drivers needed to run the X Window System are available in these kernels. It is recommended that you configure a custom kernel following installation. For those that cannot configure a custom kernel, a "generic" kernel image, named "bsd.gz" has been placed in the binaries directory. It is strongly encouraged that you build a custom kernel for your installation rather than use a prebuilt generic kernel. Installation floppy: This disk contains the software necessary to prepare your hard drive for OpenBSD and install the OpenBSD distribution. It is not bootable, and must be used in conjunction with one of the kernel-copy floppies. This floppy is named "inst-20.fs". Upgrade floppy: This disk contains the software to be used in upgrading the system from a previous version of OpenBSD. It is not bootable, and must be used in conjunction with one of the kernel-copy floppies. This floppy is named "upgr20.fs" The OpenBSD/i386 binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the OpenBSD 2.0 release for the i386. There are seven binary distribution sets. The binary distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the "i386/bins" subdirectory of the OpenBSD 2.0 distribution tree, and are as follows: base20 The OpenBSD/i386 2.0 base binary distribution. You MUST install this distribution set. It contains the base OpenBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional. It includes shared library support, and excludes everything described below. [ 7.5M gzipped, 19.5M uncompressed ] comp20 The OpenBSD/i386 Compiler tools. All of the tools relating to C, C++, and FORTRAN (yes, there are two!). This set includes the system include files (/usr/include), the linker, the compiler tool chain, and the various system libraries (except the shared libraries, which are included as part of the base set). This set also includes the manual pages for all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system call and library manual pages. [ 4.9M gzipped, 15.0M uncompressed ] etc20 This distribution set contains the system configuration files that reside in /etc and in several other places. This set MUST be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) [ 63K gzipped, 338K uncompressed ] game20 This set includes the games and their manual pages. [ 2.8M gzipped, 6.9M uncompressed ] man20 This set includes all of the manual pages for the binaries and other software contained in the base set. Note that it does not include any of the manual pages that are included in the other sets. [ 0.8M gzipped, 3.4M uncompressed ] misc20 This set includes the system dictionaries (which are rather large), the typesettable document set, and man pages for other architectures which happen to be installed from the source tree by default. [ 1.9M gzipped, 6.6M uncompressed ] text20 This set includes OpenBSD's text processing tools, including groff, all related programs, and their manual pages. [ 0.8M gzipped, 2.9M uncompressed ] The i386 binary distribution sets are distributed in the same form as the source distribution sets; catted together, the members of a set form a gzipped tar file. Each i386 binary distribution set also has its own "CKSUMS" file, just as the source distribution sets do. The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that method, the files are extracted "below" the current directory. That is, if you want to extract the binaries "into" your system, i.e. replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the "tar xfp" from /. Also note that if you upgrade or install this way, those programs that you are using at the time will NOT be replaced. If you follow the normal installation or upgrade procedures, this will be taken care of for you. OpenBSD System Requirements and Supported Devices: -------------------------------------------------- OpenBSD/i386 2.0 runs on ISA (AT-Bus), EISA, PCI, and VL-bus systems with 386-family processors, with or without math coprocessors. It does NOT support MCA systems, such as some IBM PS/2 systems. The minimal configuration is said to require 4M of RAM and 50M of disk space, though we do not know of anyone running with a system quite this minimal today. To install the entire system requires much more disk space, and to run X or compile the system, more RAM is recommended. (4M of RAM will actually allow you to run X and/or compile, but it won't be speedy. Note that until you have around 16M of RAM, getting more RAM is more important than getting a faster CPU.) Supported devices include: Floppy controllers. MFM, ESDI, IDE, and RLL hard disk controllers. SCSI host adapters: Adaptec AHA-154xA, -B, -C, and -CF Adaptec AHA-174x Adaptec AIC-6260 and AIC-6360 based boards, including the Adaptec AHA-152x and the SoundBlaster SCSI host adapter. (Note that you cannot boot from these boards if they do not have a boot ROM; only the AHA-152x and motherboards using this chip are likely to be bootable, consequently.) Adaptec AHA-294x[W] cards and some onboard PCI designs using the AIC7870 chip. This driver does *not* currently work with non-PCI AIC-7xxx boards or the Adaptec 3940. Buslogic 54x (Adaptec AHA-154x clones; driver on kcadp floppy) BusLogic 445, 74x, 9xx (But not the new "FlashPoint" series of BusLogic SCSI adapters) Symbios Logic (NCR) 53C8xx-based PCI SCSI host adapters Ultrastor 14f, 34f, and (possibly) 24f Seagate/Future Domain ISA SCSI adapter cards, including ST01/02 Future Domain TMC-885 Future Domain TMC-950 MDA, CGA, VGA, SVGA, and HGC Display Adapters. (Note that not all of the display adapters OpenBSD/i386 can work with are supported by X. See the XFree86 FAQ for more information.) Serial ports: 8250/16450-based ports 16550-based ports AST-style 4-port serial boards [*] BOCA 8-port serial cards [*] Cyclades Cyclom-{4, 8, 16}Y serial boards [*] IBM PC-RT 4-port serial boards [*] Parallel ports. Ethernet adapters: AMD LANCE and PCnet-based ISA Ethernet adapters [*], including: Novell NE1500T Novell NE2100 Kingston 21xx AMD PCnet-based PCI Ethernet adapters, including: BOCALANcard/PCI AT&T StarLAN 10, EN100, and StarLAN Fiber 3COM 3c501 3COM 3c503 3COM 3c505 [*] 3COM 3c507 3COM 3c509, 3c579, 3c589, 3c59x and 3c9xx Digital DC21x4x-based PCI Ethernet adapters, including: SMC EtherPower 10, 10/100 (PCI only!) Znyx ZX34X Cogent EM100 Digital DE450 Digital DE500 BICC Isolan [* and not recently tested] Intel EtherExpress 16 SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA boards SMC/WD 8216 (the SMC "Elite16 Ultra" ISA boards) [X SEE BELOW] Novell NE1000, NE2000 Tape drives: Most SCSI tape drives QIC-02 and QIC-36 format (Archive- and Wangtek- compatible) tape drives [*] [+] CD-ROM drives: Mitsumi CD-ROM drives [*] [+] [Note: The Mitsumi driver device probe is known to cause trouble with several devices!] Most SCSI CD-ROM drives Mice: "Logitech"-style bus mice [*] [+] "Microsoft"-style bus mice [*] [+] "PS/2"-style mice [*] [+] Serial mice (no kernel support necessary) Sound Cards: SoundBlaster [*] [+] Gravis Ulrasound and Ultrasound Max [*] [+] [The following drivers are not extensively tested] Personal Sound System [*] [+] Windows Sound System [*] [+] ProAudio Spectrum [*] [+] Miscellaneous: Drivers for hardware marked with "[*]" are NOT included on the distribution floppies. Except as noted above, all other drivers are present on both kernel-copy disks. Also, at the present time, the distributed kernels support only one SCSI host adapter per machine. OpenBSD normally allows more, though, so if you have more than one, you can use all of them by compiling a custom kernel once OpenBSD is installed. Support for devices marked with "[+]" IS included in the "generic" kernels, although it is not in the kernels which are on the distribution floppies. Hardware the we do NOT currently support, but get many questions about: Adaptec AIC-7770-based SCSI host adapters (including the Adaptec AHA-274x, AHA-284x families). NCR 5380-based SCSI host adapters. APM power management -- if your system supports it, turn it off! QIC-40 and QIC-80 tape drives. (Those are the tape drives that connect to the floppy disk controller.) WD-7000 SCSI host adapters. PCI-PCI bridges and cards which include them, such as the AHA-394x SCSI host adapter and some DC21x4x-based multi-Ethernet cards. Multiprocessor Pentium and Pentium Pro systems. (Though they should run fine using one processor only.) Intel EtherExpress 100 Fast Ethernet adapters. Digital DEFPA PCI FDDI adapters (support barely missed this release; it works in other ports, and will work in this one in the next release) We are planning future support for many of these devices. To be detected by the distributed kernels, the devices must be configured as follows: Device Name Port IRQ DRQ Misc ------ ---- ---- --- --- ---- Serial ports com0 0x3f8 4 [8250/16450/16550/clones] com1 0x2f8 3 [8250/16450/16550/clones] com2 0x3e8 5 [8250/16450/16550/clones] Parallel ports lpt0 0x378 7 [interrupt-driven or polling] lpt1 0x278 [polling only] lpt2 0x3bc [polling only] MFM/ESDI/IDE/RLL hard disk controllers wdc0 0x1f0 14 [supports two disks or atapi] wdc1 0x170 15 [supports two disks or atapi] Floppy controller fdc0 0x3f0 6 2 [supports two disks] AHA-154x, AHA-174x (in compatibility mode), or BT-54x SCSI host adapters aha0 0x330 any any AHA-174x SCSI host adapters (in enhanced mode) ahb0 any any any BT445, BT74x, or BT9xx SCSI host adapters bt0 0x330 any any Ultrastor 14f, 24f (if it works), or 34f SCSI host adapters uha0 0x330 any any AHA-152x, AIC-6260- or AIC-6360-based SCSI host adapters aic0 0x340 11 6 Symbios Logic/NCR 53C8xx based PCI SCSI host adapters ncr0 any any any SCSI disks sd0 first SCSI disk (by SCSI id) sd1 second SCSI disk (by SCSI id) sd2 third SCSI disk (by SCSI id) sd3 fourth SCSI disk (by SCSI id) SCSI tapes st0 first SCSI tape (by SCSI id) st1 second SCSI tape (by SCSI id) SCSI CD-ROMs cd0 first SCSI CD-ROM (by SCSI id) cd1 second SCSI CD-ROM (by SCSI id) SMC/WD 8003, 8013, Elite16, and Elite16 Ultra Ethernet boards, 3c503, Novell NE1000, or NE2000 Ethernet boards ed0 0x280 2 iomem 0xd0000 ed1 0x250 2 iomem 0xd8000 ed2 0x300 10 iomem 0xcc000 [X SEE BELOW] 3COM 3c509, 3c579, 3c595 Ethernet boards (the 3c590 has problems) ep0 any any AT&T StarLAN 10, EN100, or StarLAN Fiber, or 3COM 3c507 Ethernet boards ie0 0x360 7 iomem 0xd0000 PCNet-PCI based Ethernet boards; see above for partial list le0 any any [you must assign an interrupt in your PCI BIOS, or let it do so for you] DC21x4x based Ethernet boards; see above for partial list de0 any any [you must assign an interrupt in your PCI BIOS, or let it do so for you] SPECIAL CARE FOR SMC ULTRA ELITE -------------------------------- Note for SMC Elite Ultra ethernet card users: The Elite Ultra is very sensitive to how it's i/o port is treated. Mistreating it can cause a number of effects -- everything from the card not responding when the kernel probes, or the soft configuration being corrupted or wiped completely. By default, the kernel ships with device ed2 configured for the 'default' Elite Ultra locations, comprising of port 0x300, irq 10, and memory location 0xcc000. This matches a hard coded jumper on the board as well a common soft config setting. Unfortunately, the kernel's autconfiguration process (specifically, some of the devices it probes for) cause conflicts with the SMC Elite Ultra, and very often cause it to lose it's configuration and fail it's own probe. If thise happens, you must boot the computer into DOS, and run the EzSetup program available from SMC. The complete URL of which is ftp://ftp.smc.com/pub/nics/ethernet/elite_ultra/gez122.exe. This program will allow you to reconfigure and recover a card that has lost it's configuration with a minimum of hassle. In order to avoid blowing away the card, one *must* use the run-time kernel configuration system when booting the Install kernel. This is done by giving the -c flag to the initial boot request. Following the loading of the kernel, the user is presented with a UKC> prompt. At this prompt, as variety of commands may be issued, but the relevant one to getting the SMC Elite Ultra running is 'disable'. The wt0, el0, and ie1 devices all need to be disabled. This is done by typing 'disable' followed by the name of the device, i.e., 'disable wt0', and pressing return. If, for some reason, your Elite Ultra is not configured at the 'default' location the kernel is expecting it, you may also use the 'change' command in the UKC system to modify where the kernel will look for it. Typing 'change ed2' will allow you to modify those settings. Note that running the card at an i/o port of anything other then 0x300 at this point is not recommended, and is beyond the scope of this document-- by doing so you risk other device probes wreaking the havoc we are trying to avoid. When all three extra devices are disabled and any changes made, the 'quit' command will exit the UKC. The kernel should then boot, and find your Elite Ultra on device ed2. Getting the OpenBSD System on to Useful Media: ---------------------------------------------- Installation is supported from several media types, including: DOS floppies Tape Remote NFS partition FTP rsh & restore No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have two floppy disks (either 1.2M or 1.44 will work, though both should be the same type). On the first, you'll put the kernel-copy image that's appropriate for your system. On the second, you'll put the install or upgrade floppy image, depending on whether you're installing OpenBSD for the first time, or upgrading a previous installation. If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system images (.fs files) directly to the raw floppy disks. It is suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. If you are using DOS to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "i386/utilities" directory of the OpenBSD distribution. It will write the file system images (.fs files) to disks. Note that, when installing, the kernel-copy floppy can be write-protected (i.e. read-only), but the install floppy MUST not be write-protected. The install program needs to write some temporary files, and if the disk is write-protected, it can't. If you're upgrading your system, both the kernel-copy and upgrade floppies may be write-protected. Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation or upgrade depend on which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below. To install or upgrade OpenBSD using DOS floppies, you need to do the following: Count the number of "set_name.xx" files that make up the distribution sets you want to install or upgrade. You will need one fifth that number of 1.2M floppies, or one sixth that number of 1.44M floppies. You should only use one size of floppy for the install or upgrade procedure; you can't use some 1.2M floppies and some 1.44M floppies. Format all of the floppies with DOS. DO NOT make any of them bootable DOS floppies, i.e. don't use "format/s" to format them. (If the floppies are bootable, then the DOS system files that make them bootable will take up some space, and you won't be able to fit as many distribution set parts per disk.) If you're using floppies that are formatted for DOS by their manufacturers, they probably aren't bootable, and you can use them out of the box. Place all of the "set_name.xx" files on the DOS disks, five per disk if you're using 1.2M disks, six per disk if you're using 1.44M disks. How you do this is up to you; there are many possibilities. You could, for instance, use a DOS terminal program to download them on to the floppies, or use a UN*X-like system capable of reading and writing DOS file systems (either with "mtools" or a real DOS file system) to place them on the disk. Once you have the files on DOS disks, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade OpenBSD using a tape, you need to do the following: To install OpenBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, in "tar" format. If you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way to do so is probably something like: tar cf where "" is the name of the tape device that describes the tape drive you're using (possibly /dev/rst0, or something similar, but it will vary from system to system. (If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.) In the above example, "" are the distribution sets' directories, for the distribution sets you wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the "base20" and "etc20" distributions on tape (in order to do the absolute minimum installation to a new disk), you would do the following: cd .../1.2 # the top of the tree cd i386/ tar cf base20 etc20 (Note that you still need to fill in "" in the example.) Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade OpenBSD using a remote partition, mounted via NFS, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. Place the OpenBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading OpenBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.) You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading OpenBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the OpenBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the OpenBSD machine itself. Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade OpenBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are easy; all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which you can retrieve the OpenBSD distribution when you're about to install or upgrade. You need to know the numeric IP address of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading OpenBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the OpenBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the OpenBSD machine itself. Once you have this information, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. If you are upgrading OpenBSD, you also have the option of installing OpenBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following: Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" binary distribution, and so must put the "base20" set somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system. Preparing your System for OpenBSD Installation: ----------------------------------------------- NOTE: If you wish to install OpenBSD on your whole disk, i.e. you do not want DOS or any other operating system to reside on your hard disk, you can skip this section and go on to the section that describes installation, below. If you're upgrading your system from a previous release of OpenBSD, you shouldn't have proceeded directly to the section about upgrading; you need none of the information presented here. First and foremost, before beginning the installation process, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A RELIABLE BACKUP of any data on your hard disk that you wish to keep. Repartitioning your hard disk is an excellent way to destroy important data. Second, if you are using a disk controller which supports disk geometry translation, be sure to use the same parameters for OpenBSD as for DOS or the other operating systems installed on your disk. If you do not, it will be much harder to make OpenBSD properly coexist with them. Utilities exist which will print out the disk geometry which DOS sees; some versions of DOS "fdisk" also do this. If you have an "EIDE" hard disk, DOS and OpenBSD probably won't see the same geometry, and you must be careful to find out the DOS geometry and tell OpenBSD about it during the installation. Third (but related to the second point above), if you are using a hard disk with more sectors than DOS or your controller's BIOS supports without some kind of software translation utility or other kludge, you MUST BE SURE that all partitions which you want to boot from must start below cylinder 1024 by the BIOS's idea of the disk, and that all DOS partitions MUST EXIST ENTIRELY BELOW cylinder 1024, or you will either not be able to boot OpenBSD, not be able to boot DOS, or you may experience data loss or filesystem corruption. Be sure you aren't using geometry translation that you don't know about, but that the DOS "fdisk" program does! Fourth, use the DOS "fdisk" program or another partition editor to repartition your hard disk. Create a partition of at least 40M in size (preferably much larger), and note its starting offset and its length (preferably in units of disk sectors or cylinders). You will need that information when installing OpenBSD (and if the offset and length are not in those units, you will have to convert them). Once you have created the new OpenBSD partition, mark it as having a partition type of 0xA6 (166, in decimal). If you used "fdisk" to partition your disk, you will probably have to use a different partition editor to mark the partition with the correct type. Finally, do whatever is necessary to restore order to the partition you took space away from. If it was a DOS partition, you probably will need to use "format" to create a new file system on it, and then restore your important files from your backups. Other operating systems will have different needs; most will need to reformat the partition, and if it was their "main" partition, will probably need to be reinstalled. Your hard disk is now prepared to have OpenBSD installed on it, and you should proceed with the installation instructions. Installing the OpenBSD System: ------------------------------ Installing OpenBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have this document in hand and are careful to read and remember the information which is presented to you by the install program, it shouldn't be too much trouble. Before you begin, you should know the geometry of your hard disk, i.e. the sector size (note that sector sizes other than 512 bytes are not currently supported), the number of sectors per track, the number of tracks per cylinder (also known as the number of heads), and the number of cylinders on the disk. The OpenBSD kernel will try to discover these parameters on its own, and if it can it will print them at boot time. If possible, you should use the parameters it prints. (You might not be able to because you're sharing your disk with another operating system, or because your disk is old enough that the kernel can't figure out its geometry.) If OpenBSD will be sharing the disk with DOS or another operating system, you should have already completed the section of these notes that instructed you on how to prepare your hard disk. You should know the size of the OpenBSD area of the disk and its offset from the beginning of the disk. You will need this information when setting up your OpenBSD partitions. You should now be ready to install OpenBSD. It might be handy for you to have a pencil, some paper, and a calculator handy. The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while getting OpenBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation process again from scratch. If, at any point, the kernel panics with "ffs_valloc" your inst floppy is probably corrupted. You should make a new inst floppy or fsck your existing one (if you can). Boot your machine using of the appropriate kernel-copy floppy. When presented with the boot prompt (the prompt begins with "Boot" and ends with ":-"), hit return. If the boot prompt does not appear in a reasonable amount of time, you either have a bad boot floppy or a hardware problem. Try writing the kernel-copy floppy image to a different disk, and using that. If that doesn't work, try booting after disabling your CPU's internal and external caches (if any). If it still doesn't work, OpenBSD probably can't be run on your hardware. This can probably be considered a bug, so you might want to report it. If you do, please include as many details about your system configuration as you can. It will take a while to load the kernel from the floppy, probably around a minute or so. After its loaded, you will be presented with the message: "Insert file system floppy" If you do not see that message after a reasonable time has elapsed, or the spinning cursor has stopped and nothing further has happened, either your boot floppy is bad or you are having hardware problems, and should proceed as outlined above. Once you have reached that prompt, remove the kernel-copy floppy from the floppy drive. Make sure that the installation disk (the "inst-20" floppy) is writable, insert it into the floppy drive, and hit any key. You will then be presented with the OpenBSD kernel boot messages. You will want to read them, to determine your disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like "sd0" or "wd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your disk's geometry when creating OpenBSD's partitions. You will also need to know the name, to tell the install tools what disk to install on. While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You should be warned that no swap space is present, and that init(8) cannot find /etc/rc. Do not be alarmed, these are completely normal. When you reach the prompt asking you for a shell name, just hit return. You will be presented with a welcome message and a prompt, asking if you wish to proceed with the installation process. If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and hit return. You will be asked what type of disk driver you have. The valid options are listed by the install program, to make sure you get it right. If you're installing on an ST-506 or ESDI drive, you'll be asked if your disk supports automatic sector forwarding. If you are SURE that it does, reply affirmatively. Otherwise, the install program will automatically reserve space for bad144 tables. The install program will then tell you which disks of that type it can install on, and ask you which it should use. Reply with the name of your disk. (The first disk of the type you selected, either "wd0" for ST-506/ESDI/IDE disks, or "sd0" for SCSI disks, is the default.) You will then be asked to name your disk's disklabel. The default response is "mywd" or "mysd" depending on the type of your disk, and for most purposes it will be OK. If you choose to name it something different, make sure the name is a single word and contains no special characters. You don't need to remember this name. You will be prompted for your disk's geometry information, i.e. the number of bytes per sector, cylinders on the disk, tracks per cylinder (heads), and sectors per track. Enter them when they are requested. If you make a mistake, hit Control-C and when you get to the shell prompt, restart the install process by running the "install" command. Once you have entered this data, the install program will tell you the total size of your disk, in both sectors, and cylinders. Remember this number; if you're installing on the whole disk, you'll need it again soon. When describing your partitions, you will have the option of entering data about them in units of disk sectors or cylinders. If you choose to enter the information in units of sectors, remember that, for optimal performance, partitions should begin and end on cylinder boundaries. You will be asked about which units you wish to use, and you should reply with "c" for cylinders, or "s" for sectors. You will be asked for the size of the OpenBSD portion of the disk. If you're installing on the whole disk, reply with the size of the disk, as printed earlier by the install program. If you're using only part of the disk, reply with the size that you specified in the partition editor. (Don't forget to enter the size in the units you specified in the last step!) If you are not installing on the whole disk, you will be asked fro the offset of the OpenBSD partition from the beginning of the disk. Reply with the appropriate offset (again, in whichever units you specified), as determined by how you set up your disk using the partition editor. You will be asked to enter the size of your OpenBSD root partition. It should be at least 13M, but if you are going to be doing development, 14-16M is a more desirable size. This size should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, depending on which you said you wanted to use. Next, you will be asked for the size of your swap partition. You should probably allocate twice as much swap space as you have real memory. Systems that will be heavily used should have more swap space allocated, and systems that will be lightly used can get by with less. If you want the system to be able to save crash dumps when it panics, you will need at least as much swap space as you have RAM. Again, this number should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, as appropriate. The install program will then ask you for information about the rest of the partitions you want on your disk. For most purposes, you will want only one more partition, "/usr". (Machines used as servers will probably also want /var as a separate partition. That can be done with these installation tools, but is not covered here.) The install program will tell you how much space there is left to be allocated in the OpenBSD area of the disk, and, if you only want one more partition ("/usr"), you should enter it at the prompt when the installer asks you how large the next partition should be. It will then ask you for the name of the mount point for that partition. If you're doing a basic installation, that is "/usr". YOU ARE NOW AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. Nothing has been written to your disk yet, but if you confirm that you want to install OpenBSD, your hard drive will be modified, and its contents may be scrambled at the whim of the install program. This is especially likely if you have given the install program incorrect information. If you are sure you want to proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt. The install program will now label your disk and make the file systems you specified. The filesystems will be initialized to contain OpenBSD bootstrapping binaries and configuration files. It will also create an /etc/fstab for your system, and mount all of the file systems under /mnt. (In other words, your root partition will be mounted on /mnt, your /usr partition on /mnt/usr, and so on.) There should be no errors in this section of the installation. If there are, restart from the beginning of the installation process. You will be placed at a shell prompt ("#"). The remaining tasks are to copy the kernel from the kernel copy floppy to the hard drive's root filesystem and install the distribution sets. The flow of installation differs depending on your hardware resources, and on what media the distribution sets reside. To install from floppy: If you only have only one floppy drive, the order of installation is different. Follow the directions in the "Kernel installation" section which will help you install a kernel on the hard drive and then boot off the hard drive, then continue with the rest of the process described here to install the distribution sets from floppy: The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that if your disk is still mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the "Load_fd" command, to load the distribution sets from your floppies. You will be asked which floppy drive to use. Enter "0" (zero) if you're using the first floppy drive (i.e. what DOS would call "A:"), or enter "1" if you're using the second. (Remember that you CANNOT use the floppy drive that you booted from. If you booted from "A:", you must load from "B:".) You will be prompted to insert a floppy into the drive, to have its contents copied to your hard disk. Do so, and hit return to begin copying. When that is done, read the remainder of the floppies that contain the distribution sets that you want to install, one by one. When the last is read, and you are being prompted for another, hit Control-C. Run the "Extract" command once for each distribution set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to install the "base20" distribution set, followed by the "man20" distribution set, and finally the "etc20" distribution set, use the commands: Extract base20 Extract man20 Extract etc20 For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it will print out the name of each file that's being extracted. (Note: if you know that you will be running low on disk space when installing OpenBSD, you can load and extract one distribution set at a time. To do this, load only the floppies which contain the files for the first distribution set, extract them, and then change to the temporary directory and remove them with the command "rm set_name.??".) Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that you wish to install, you should proceed to the instructions below (after the last install medium type-specific instructions), that explain how you should configure your system. To install from tape: The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The default is /mnt/usr/distrib. After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the "Load_tape" command, to load the distribution sets from tape. You will be asked which tape drive to use. The default is "rst0", which is correct if you're using the SCSI tape drive with the lowest SCSI ID number. (For the SCSI tape drive with the next lowest SCSI ID number, you should use "rst1", and so on.) You will be prompted to hit return when you have inserted the tape into the tape drive. When you do, the contents of the tape will be extracted into the temporary directory, and the names of the files being extracted will be printed. After the tape has been extracted, to go the directory containing the first distribution set you wish to install. (Depending on how you made the tape, it's probably a subdirectory of the temporary directory you specified above.) Once there, run the "Set_tmp_dir" command again, and accept its default answer by hitting return at the prompt. Use the "Extract" command to extract the distribution set. For instance, if you're extracting the "base20" set, use the command: Extract base20 You will be asked if you wish the extraction to be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, the name of each file being extracted will be printed. Repeat the previous two steps for each distribution set you wish to install. Change to the set's directory, run "Set_tmp_dir", and then run "Extract " to extract the set. Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that you wish to install, you should proceed to the instructions below (after the last install medium type-specific instructions), that explain how you should configure your system. To install via FTP or NFS: The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The default is /mnt/usr/distrib. Configure the appropriate ethernet interface (e.g. ed0, ep0, etc.) up, with a command like: ifconfig [netmask ] where "" is the interface name, like those listed above, and "" is the numeric IP address of the interface. If the interface has a special netmask, supply the word "netmask" at and that netmask at the end of the command line. (The brackets indicate that those arguments are optional.) For instance, to configure interface ed0 with IP address 129.133.10.10, use the command: ifconfig ed0 129.133.10.10 and to configure interface ep0 with IP address 128.32.240.167 and a special netmask, 0xffffff00, use the command: ifconfig ep0 128.32.240.167 netmask 0xffffff00 If your board selects software selection of the ethernet interface to use, you might have to add special flags to the "ifconfig" command you use. Consult the table below for the appropriate flags: Interface Type Connector Flags --------- ---- --------- ----- ed with WD/SMC* BNC [none necessary] ed with WD/SMC* UTP [none necessary] ed with WD/SMC* AUI link0 ed with 3c503 BNC [none necessary] ed with 3c503 AUI link0 ep BNC [none necessary] ep AUI link0 ep UTP link0 link1 * Older WD boards do not support software configuration, and must be configured via jumpers. These flags will have no effect on them. In other words, if, in the last example, the AUI port of the board were being used, you would use the command: ifconfig ep0 128.32.240.167 netmask 0xffffff00 link0 If the NFS server or FTP server is not on a directly- connected network, you need to set up a route to it using a command like: route add default where is your gateway's numeric IP address. If you are NFS-mounting the distribution sets, mount them on the temporary directory with a command like: mount -t nfs : where is the server's numeric IP address, is the path to the distribution files on the server, and is the name of the local temporary directory. Once this is done, proceed as if you had loaded the files from tape, changing to the appropriate directories, running "Set_tmp_dir", and running "Extract" as appropriate. If you are retrieving the distribution sets using ftp, change into the temporary directory, and execute the command: ftp where is once again the server's numeric IP address. Get the files with FTP, taking care to use binary mode when transferring the files. Once you have all of the files for the distribution sets that you wish to install, you can proceed using the instructions above, as if you had installed from a floppy. (Note that as with the floppy install, if you're short on disk space, you can transfer only one set at a time, extract it, then delete it, to save space.) Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets that you wish to install, and are back at the "#" prompt, you are ready to configure your system. The configuration utility expects that you have installed the "base20" and "etc20" distribution sets. If you have not, you will not be able to run it successfully (nor will you have a functional system, in any case). To configure your newly-installed OpenBSD system, run the command "Configure". It will ask you for the system's host name, domain name, and other network configuration information. It will set up your configuration files and make the device nodes for the newly-installed system. Kernel Installation: Enter "halt" at the prompt to halt the system. When the system is halted, remove the "inst-20" floppy from the floppy drive, and replace it with the OpenBSD 2.0 kernel-copy floppy that you previously booted from. Reboot with that floppy. with that floppy. Once again, you will be prompted to insert a file system floppy. DO NOT replace the kernel-copy floppy, just hit any key. Again, While booting, you may see several warnings. You may be warned that no swap space is present, that init(8) cannot find /etc/rc, and that one or more databases with names like "pwd.db" cannot be found. Do not be alarmed, as, again, these are completely normal. Hit return at the prompt asking you for a shell name. You will be presented with a shell prompt, at which you should enter the "copy_kernel" command. It will ask you what partition to copy the kernel to, and you should reply with the name of your root partition (e.g. sd0a or wd0a). You will be asked if you are sure that you want to copy the kernel. Reply affirmatively, and it will check the file system on your root partition, mount it, and copy the kernel. Once the kernel is copied, you should use "halt" to halt the system. Once the system is halted, remove the kernel-copy floppy from the floppy disk drive, and hit any key to reboot. Congratulations, you have successfully installed OpenBSD 2.0. When you reboot into OpenBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt. There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a networked environment, you should create yourself an account and protect it and the "root" account with good passwords. Some of the files in the OpenBSD 2.0 distribution might need to be tailored for your site. In particular, the /etc/sendmail.cf file will almost definitely need to be adjusted, and other files in /etc will probably need to be modified, as well. If you are unfamiliar with UN*X-like system administration, it's recommended that you buy a book that discusses it. Upgrading a previously-installed OpenBSD System: ------------------------------------------------ NOTE! If you are going to do the upgrade manually, you MUST use the "-r" flag when invoking disklabel(8). You MUST also change the partition table such that partition 'c' encompasses the entire drive, and not only the OpenBSD partition. Finally, partition 'd' is no longer special and can be used for any purpose whatsoever. Also, OpenBSD now uses partition ID 0xA6 (166 decimal), but will continue to work with 0xA5 for compatibility reasons. However, if you change the partition ID to 0xA6, you will be able to share the disk with 386BSD, FreeBSD or NetBSD. Note that the latter three can NOT easily share the disk with each others. To do the upgrade, you must have the appropriate kernel-copy floppy image on a disk, and the upgr20.fs floppy image on another. You must also have at least the "base20" binary distribution set available, so that you can upgrade with it, using one of the upgrade methods described above. Finally, you must have sufficient disk space available to install the new binaries. Since the old binaries are being overwritten in place, you only need space for the new binaries, which weren't previously on the system. If you have a few megabytes free on each of your root and /usr partitions, you should have enough space. Since upgrading involves replacing the boot blocks on your OpenBSD partition, the kernel, and most of the system binaries, it has the potential to cause data loss. You are strongly advised to BACK UP ANY IMPORTANT DATA ON YOUR DISK, whether on the OpenBSD partition or on another operating system's partition, before beginning the upgrade process. To upgrade your system, follow the following instructions: Boot your machine using of the appropriate kernel-copy floppy. When presented with the boot prompt (the prompt begins with "Boot" and ends with ":-"), hit return. You will be prompted to insert a file system floppy. Remove the kernel-copy floppy and insert the upgr20 floppy, then hit any key to continue booting. While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You should be warned that no swap space is present, and that init(8) cannot find /etc/rc. Do not be alarmed, these are completely normal. When you reach the prompt asking you for a shell name, just hit return. You will be presented with some information about the upgrade process and a warning message, and will be asked if you wish to proceed with the upgrade process. If you answer negatively, the upgrade process will stop, and your disk will not be modified. If you answer affirmatively, the upgrade process will begin, and your disk will be modified. You may hit Control-C to stop the upgrade process at any time. However, if you hit it at an inopportune moment, your system may be left in an inconsistent (and possibly unusable) state. You may be asked if you wish to upgrade your file systems to the new file system format. If you do, reply affirmatively. If you don't have your file systems upgraded now, you should probably do it manually after the install process is complete, by using "fsck -c 2". Read the fsck(8) manual page for more details. Note that this step is only important when upgrading from a pre-OpenBSD 1.0 release. The upgrade program will then check your root file system, and, if you approved, will upgrade it to the new file system format. It will then mount your root file system on /mnt. If your file systems are being upgraded, the upgrade script will copy the new fsck(8) program to your hard disk and upgrade your remaining file systems. The upgrade program will then automatically replace the boot blocks on your disk with newer versions, and mount all of your file systems under /mnt. (In other words, your root partition will be mounted on /mnt, your /usr partition on /mnt/usr, etc.) If you don't already have the OpenBSD distribution sets on your disk, look in the installation section for information on how to transfer them to your disk. If you have only one floppy drive, and don't have the disk space to copy all of the distribution onto the hard drive, you can do the following: Install a kernel on the hard drive as detailed a few paragraphs below, then boot off the hard drive. Now you can copy and install distribution sets incrementally from your lone floppy drive. Once the distribution sets are transferred to your disk, continue here. (Obviously, if the OpenBSD distribution sets are already on your disk, because you've transferred them before starting the upgrade process, you don't need to transfer them again now!) After the software has been transferred to the machine (or mounted, in the case of upgrading via NFS), change into the directory containing the "base20" distribution set. Once you are there, run the "Set_tmp_dir" command, and hit return at the prompt to select the default answer for the temporary directory's path name. (It should be the path name of the directory that you're in.) Run the command "Extract base20" to upgrade the base distribution. Repeat the above two steps for all of the sets you wish to upgrade. (For each, change into the directory containing the set, run "Set_tmp_dir" and accept the default path name, then run the "Extract " command.) If you were previously using the security distribution set, you MUST upgrade to the new version, or you will not be able to log in when the upgrade process is complete. Similarly, if you were not previously using the security set, you must NOT upgrade to the new version. When you are done upgrading all of the distribution sets you wish to upgrade, issue the command "Cleanup". It will clean up the installation, by remaking some system databases. When it is complete, you should use "halt" to halt the system. When the system is halted, remove the "upgr20" floppy from the floppy drive, and replace it with the OpenBSD 2.0 kernel-copy floppy that you previously booted from. Reboot with that floppy. Once again, you will be prompted to insert a file system floppy. DO NOT replace the kernel-copy floppy, just hit any key. Again, While booting, you may see several warnings. You may be warned that no swap space is present, that init(8) cannot find /etc/rc, and that one or more databases with names like "pwd.db" cannot be found. Do not be alarmed, as, again, these are completely normal. Hit return at the prompt asking you for a shell name. You will be presented with a shell prompt, at which you should enter the "copy_kernel" command. It will ask you what partition to copy the kernel to, and you should reply with the name of your root partition (e.g. sd0a or wd0a). You will be asked if you are sure that you want to copy the kernel. Reply affirmatively, and it will check the file system on your root partition, mount it, and copy the kernel. Once the kernel is copied, you should use "halt" to halt the system. Once the system is halted, remove the kernel-copy floppy from the floppy disk drive, and hit any key to reboot. Your system has now been upgraded to OpenBSD 2.0. After a new kernel has been copied to your hard disk, your machine is a complete OpenBSD 2.0 system. However, that doesn't mean that you're finished with the upgrade process. There are several things that you should do, or might have to do, to insure that the system works properly. Second, you will probably want to get the etc20 distribution, extract it, and compare its contents with those in your /etc/ directory. You will probably want to replace some of your system configuration files, or incorporate some of the changes in the new versions into yours. Third, you will probably want to update the set of device nodes you have in /dev. If you've changed the contents of /dev by hand, you will need to be careful about this, but if not, you can just cd into /dev, and run the command "sh MAKEDEV all". Fourth, you must deal with certain changes in the formats of some of the configuration files. The most notable change is that the "options" given to many of the file systems in /etc/fstab or by hand have changed, and some of the file systems have changed names. *IMPORTANT*: ANY INSTANCES OF "ufs" IN /etc/fstab MUST BE CHANGED TO "ffs". To find out what the new options are, it's suggested that you read the manual page for the file systems' mount commands, for example mount_nfs(8) for NFS. (Note that the information for mounts of type "ffs", i.e. Fast File Systems, are contained in the mount(8) man page.) Finally, you will want to delete old binaries that were part of the version of OpenBSD that you upgraded from and have since been removed from the OpenBSD distribution. If you are upgrading from a pre-1.0 OpenBSD, you might also want to recompile any locally-built binaries, to take advantage of the shared libraries. (Note that any new binaries that you build will be dynamically linked, and therefore take advantage of the shared libraries, by default. For information on how to make statically linked binaries, see the cc(1) and ld(1) manual pages.) Using online OpenBSD documentation: ----------------------------------- Documentation is available if you first install the manual distribution set. Traditionally, the UN*X "man pages" (documentation) are denoted by 'name(section)'. Some examples of this are intro(1), man(1), apropros(1), passwd(1), and passwd(5). The section numbers group the topics into several categories, but three are of primary interest: user commands are in section 1, file formats are in section 5, and administrative information is in section 8. The 'man' command is used to view the documentation on a topic, and is started by entering 'man [section] topic'. The brackets [] around the section should not be entered, but rather indicate that the section is optional. If you don't ask for a particular section, the topic with the least-numbered section name will be displayed. For instance, after logging in, enter man passwd to read the documentation for passwd(1). To view the documentation for passwd(5), enter man 5 passwd instead. If you are unsure of what man page you are looking for, enter apropos subject-word where "subject-word" is your topic of interest; a list of possibly related man pages will be displayed. Administrivia: -------------- There are various mailing lists available via the mailing list server at . To get help on using the mailing list server, send mail to that address with an empty body, and it will reply with instructions. To report bugs, use the 'sendbug' command shipped with OpenBSD, and fill in as much information about the problem as you can. Good bug reports include lots of details. Additionally, bug reports can be sent by mail to: bugs@OpenBSD.ORG Use of 'sendbug' is encouraged, however, because bugs reported with it are entered into the OpenBSD bugs database, and thus can't slip through the cracks. There are also port-specific mailing lists, to discuss aspects of each port of OpenBSD. Use majordomo to find their addresses. If you're interested in doing a serious amount of work on a specific port, you probably should contact the "owner" of that port (listed below). As a favor, please avoid mailing huge documents or files to these mailing lists. Instead, put the material you would have sent up for FTP somewhere, then mail the appropriate list about it, or, if you'd rather not do that, mail the list saying you'll send the data to those who want it.