In order to have a smooth working system administration process, the various system administrators somehow have to cooperate in a specific way.

Book keeping

Some bookkeeping helps in this process:

1. /root/MUTATIONS:
   A file where each atomic action of a sysadmin is documented. Preferable with date ordered entries.
2. /var/mail:
   Make use of the e-mail phenomenon to update your co-admins of the latest important changes!
3. /etc/motd:
   Update this file to inform your co-admins and users of important changes.
4. /dev/oral/communication:
   Use this device to communicate with your collegues before doing anything that could have/will have a rather large impact on the running system.

Other points of attention

Having some standard habits and procedures can be helpful too:

1. *-dist files:
   If a sysadmin is the first to alter a certain file, for example /etc/rc.conf, it is wise to make a backup to /etc/rc.conf-dist, in order to preserve the original file. Later on, you can review the differences between the original and the new version of that file.
   If a *-dist file already exists, it should NOT be over- written. When you’d feel safer to have a backup of the latest version, copy the file to something like *-old. The *-dist files are the original files of the original installation of the Operating System you’re using.
2. installations of third party sofware:
   If you need to install a program that’s both in the binary package collection and in the /usr/ports collection, choose for the former. No needless compiling and wasting diskspace, bandwidth and CPU cycles.
3. installation of already present software:
   Make use of the already present software on the system. OpenBSD for instance, comes with Apache out of the box. No use retrieving, compiling and installing it yourself. Installed software has been reviewed by the OpenBSD team, who patch it when necessary for security fixes.

Setup I use:

- CPU: Intel Pentium-I 233MHz
- RAM: 128MB
- HD: 10GB, 15GB
- FD: 1,44″
- NIC: Realtek 8139, 3Com 3c905 100Base-TX

A log file of the installation process of OpenBSD 2.9 is available here. It was retrieved from a FTP mirror, not created by me. It is meant to give an impression of how the installation process looks like. The installation of OpenBSD 3.4 is just slightly different.

The OpenBSD v3.4 installation process went as follows (mail me if I forget important steps and/or info):

1. Connect to the nearest OpenBSD FTP mirror.
2. Go to the /pub/OpenBSD/3.4/i386 directory. Use something other than i386 if you install on an other platform.
3. Retrieve the installation floppy image (floppy34.fs). This should be enough to start the install in most situations.
4. Burn the installation floppy to a floppy disk:
   Example: dd if=floppy34.fs of=/dev/fd0
5. Boot the system from the floppy disk.
6. When asked for /bin/sh just hit the enter key.
7. For installation hit “i”, for a upgrade “u”. Only the installation option is covered here. I like clean installs.
8. If you’d like to use the complete disk for OpenBSD enter “yes”.
9. Now configure your OpenBSD disk slice. This is done by the label editor. Type “?” for help, “x” to exit without saving changes and “q” to exit and save changes. To add an partition type “a x” where “x” is the partition you’d like to add. Type “p” to see all partions. Partition “a” is often the / (root) partion, “b” is reserved for a potential swap partition, “c” is a sort of symbolic partition representing the whole disk, the rest of the letters are free to (ab)use.

   You would probably a separate partition for /, /tmp, /var, /usr and /home. My suggestion for a small (2G HD, 32MB RAM) home server/workstation system:

   /     : 128 MB
swap  : 128 MB
/tmp  : 128 MB
/var  : 256 MB
/usr  : 1048 MB
/home : the rest

   If you got the space, a 10G harddisk for instance and 64MB RAM, you could do it like this:

   /     : 128 MB
swap  : 128 MB
/tmp  : 512 MB
/var  : 1024 MB
/usr  : 2048 MB
/home : 1024 MB
/vol  : the rest

   With a real small server, say 1G HD and 16MB RAM, you could probably do best by using this kind of layout:

   /     : 64 MB
swap  : 96 MB
/usr  : the rest

   And symlink /var, /tmp and /home to respectively /usr/var, /usr/tmp and/usr/home.

   Above layouts are rough indications and can vary enormously from system to system. Database servers might/should want a bigger /var for instance. A lot of users wanting space for their files could warrant more space being allocated to /home.

   Hit “q” to exit and save your configuration when done.

10. The install process then presents a chance to initialize more disks (if found) via the same process explained a step earlier. If you’re satisfied with your disk(s), enter “done” and hit return. The install process shows all partitions and their respective mount points of all disks initialized for you to review. Hitting return will show the next partition and its moint point. This is an endless loop. When everything is okay, enter “done” and hit return, to escape the endless loop and continue.
11. The install formats your disks and partitions and continues by asking if you’d like to setup networking. Answer the simple questions and hit return at the default answer of no, when it asks if you’d like to escape to a shell environment.
12. The install mounts your partitions and asks for the root password. Type it carefully and remember it! (-;
13. Next, if you’d like to run the XFree86 X Window System, answer yes to the question prompted. If your setting up a server, answering no will be a good decision in most cases.
14. Now, you’re ready to download the base install files via FTP, HTTP and some other neat protocols. Select your favourite and select which packages it should install. To select or deselect a package simply type in the full name of it, including the ending “.tgz”.
15. When you’re done installing those nice tarballs answer no to the “extract more sets” question. The install creates some files in /etc and lets you choose your timezone. Select a cool looking zone and hit the return key.
16. Finally, you’re almost done! You only have to reboot the system now! But wait until the install process tells you it’s save, before doing that.

Introduction

With OpenBSD updating the kernel, the system utilities or the ports collection is a rather simple and straightforward process. All sources of the above mentioned pieces that make up the OpenBSD operating system are stored in CVS.

CVS is a system that allows for Concurrent Versions Control for one or more software projects. It allows the people of the OpenBSD project to work on the same set of sources.

For you, the end-user of OpenBSD it is handy too. It allows you to retrieve via a simple CVS command to retrieve the latest set of patches from a certain branch of OpenBSD.

Here, we’ll concentrate on updating the stable branch of the OpenBSD 3.4 kernel and system utilities.

Getting the sources

First, we need to lay our hands on the system sources. There are roughly three places to get them:

1. One of the two of your OpenBSD CDs if you have those
2. A FTP mirror containing a OpenBSD tree
3. From a OpenBSD CVS server

I myself prefer method two, for it’s faster than downloading it from CVS and I don’t have the official CDs. On one of the many mirrors you should cd your way into the subtree of the OpenBSD version you’re interested in and download the following three files:

1. ports.tar.gz
2. src.tar.gz
3. srcsys.tar.gz

Create a directory called src in /usr if it doens’t exists. cd to /usr/src and extract the filessrc.tar.gz and srcsys.tar.gz in that directory.
cd to /usr and extract ports.tar.gz.

# cd /usr/src
# tar xfz ~alex/download/src.tar.gz
# tar xfz ~alex/download/srcsys.tar.gz
# cd ..
# tar xfz ~alex/download/ports.tar.gz

Updating the sources

Now, we’ll try to contact a friendly CVS server and try to squeeze some updates and/or patches out of it.

First, set these environment variables:

export CVS_RSH="/usr/bin/ssh"
export CVSROOT="anoncvs@anoncvs.se.openbsd.org:/cvs"
export CVS_IGNORE_REMOTE_ROOT="1"

Then change your working directory to /usr/src and update the source tree by issueing this command:

cvs -d $CVSROOT -q update -rOPENBSD_3_4 -Pd

Recompiling the kernel

See Configuring the kernel for this.

Recompiling the software in the base system

su to root and change directory to /usr/src/dir/toolname

# cd /usr/src
# cd libexec/telnetd
# make obj
# make depend
# make
# make install

Recompiling software in the ports collection

Coming soon..