NetBSD - A little guide for newcomers

pfr

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I know! but I was anxious to get things up and running again so I rushed a little... 😅
i tried sed '35d' /etc/rc.conf but obviously hadn't mounted / so got a read only error.

Thanks, managed to mount / after exporting TERM=vt220 and edited the file in vi

Curiously, what is npf and wscons?

pfr Curiously, what is npf and wscons?

npf is NetBSD's firewall, http://rmind.github.io/npf/
(Thx to @JuvenalUrbino for providing me with a personal config 🤗 )

wscons are NetBSD's console drivers, https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-cons.html

pfr

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Yeah, I realised I needed wscons enabled pretty quick when i started getting tty errors

Is your config for npf pretty universal if I was to use it?

pfr Is your config for npf pretty universal if I was to use it?

Yes, its based on my request to @JuvenalUrbino of allow all outbound traffic and deny (nearly) all incoming, with the exceptions you can read on the config file itself.

pfr

@pin unrelated... how did you get battery percentage to show in ufetch?

pfr ufetch is a simple shell script and you can modify it to your like 😉
I've several modifications but, to answer your question...
...its an old one liner from my old awesomewm status bar that I wrote using envstat, awk and tr

battery="$(envstat -s acpibat0:charge | awk 'FNR == 3 {print $6}' | tr -d '()')"

I've also added machine model and changed the kernel output command
Check my version here

If you like it better just make it executable and move it to /usr/pkg/bin, make sure the one from pkgin/pkgsrc is not installed 🙂

pfr

I'm going to keep posting my issues here as it might eventually help someone else installing for the first time.

My wireless just randomly stopped working! I have no idea why. It was working fine, and would even auto connect at startup.
I was getting random messages saying something about dhcpcd lease has expired but it wasn't until late last night the wifi just dropped off.
I check connection to my wifi with WIFIman on my phone and sure enough, it appears to be connected but says 100% packet loss 🙁

I'm not sure if this is an issue with my configuration or my wifi istelf? all other devices on my network are working fine so I don't see how it is the wifi.

ifconfig returns:
iwn0: flags=0x8843<UP, BROADCAST, RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 ssid MYWIFI newkey ***** powersave off bssid 60:38:e0:c7:e5:13 chan 9 address: 6c:88:14:47:f1:f0 media: IEEE802.11 autoselect mode 11g (DS1 mode 11g) status: active inet 192.168.1.132/24 broadcast 192.168.1.255 flags 0x1<TENTATIVE> inet6 fe80::6e88:14ff:fe47:f1f0%iwn0/64 flags 0x0 scopeid 0x2

Any ideas whats going on? IT WAS WOKING JUST FINE! SADFACE! 🙁

Edit: Reset my router and got a message upon reboot:
dhcpcd[132]: dhcp6_sendmessage: iwn0: sendmsg: Network is unreachable syslogd [197]: last message repeated 2 times

Again, my laptop is showing as connected in my router's admin page.

pfr Are all your config files ok?
Have you tried restarting the service?
Does ifconfig iwn0 list scan find your SSID?

pfr

pin
I can ping ftp.netbsd.org no prpblems, but trying to pkgsrc update wont work, even simple curl commands result in couldn't connect to server

Does ifconfig iwn0 list scan require root? it comes back with "Operation not permitted"
I ran it with doas and yes, it came back with both of my ssid's (2.4 & 5 ghz channels)

pfr was this a fresh install?
I have the same card as yours and have no issues. That's why I wonder about your configuration files...
At least you know where to find mine but, that doesn't help me...

pfr

Yes, was a fresh install 9.0 Stable

I also checked /var/log/messages and I see at the top:
dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: carrier lost dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: carrier acquired dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: IAID 14:47:f1:f0 dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: soliciting an IPv6 router dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: rebinding lease of xxx.xxx.x.xxx dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: no IPv6 Routers available

not sure if that has anything to do with it..?

But the weird thing is it was working and I didn't change anything? I did set up npf using your config but thats about it.
I tried diabling npf in rc.conf and upon reboot I now get dhcpcd[132]: iwn0 DHCPv6: No Addresses Available

pfr just so we clear that up.
Could you set npf=NO in rc.conf, shutdown (full shutdown, please) and power on your machine?
How is it behaving now?

pfr

pin sure,
same error as before:
dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: DHCPv6 REPLY: No Addresses Available syslogd[199]: last message repeated 2 times syslogd[199]: last message repeated 2 times

EDIT:

However, seems to be working now... but then why the error above (which pop's up every so often over and over again)?

pfr When you set-up /etc/hosts the other day, did you change the values of the IP addresses?

pfr

I do have a hosts file which is probably wrong....

::1 x230.localhost x230 127.0.0.1 x230.localhost x230

x230 being the hostname i set in my rc.conf, but i'm not sure if the above is formatted correctly?

I didn't really set any IP addresses up in there, everything else besides the above is commented out
#RFC 1918 specifies that these networks are "internal' #10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix) #127.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (127.16/12 prefix) #192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

EDIT:
I've unset my hostname in rc.conf and I've reset my etc/hosts file to what is was originally, which was:
::1 localhost localhost. 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.

I thought this might fix the error but it still persists. I've tried to read up a little about the hosts file but I've never had to mess with such a file before so I'm kind of stumped 😛

I'd also really like to enable npf again and get it working properly once I get my network connection sorted

pfr I'd also really like to enable npf again and get it working properly once I get my network connection sorted

Understood. I'd really try to get it working before looking into npf

pfr did you really named your DNS localhost ??
Please check, https://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/, https://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?hosts+5+NetBSD-9.0 and section 5.12 of https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-boot.html

pfr

pin
I've read through everything in those links and I'm stumped. This networking stuff is a bit over my head.
I really do not know what to put in my hosts file... I have no idea what my DNS is named because I didn't set up a DNS and I dont know how to find out my defaulroute address is..
How can I get this info about my network?

Feeling like a total noob right now, I've got no idea 😅

pfr Ok, so you don't remember what you typed at this screen?

Well, I wrote my.domain 😉

Then, I set hostname=mybox in my rc.conf file.
This means that I shoud have the following /etc/hosts

#	$NetBSD: hosts,v 1.9 2013/11/24 07:20:01 dholland Exp $
#
# Host name database.
#
# This file contains addresses and aliases for local hosts whose names
# need to be resolvable during system boot; typically this includes only
# the address and FQDN for this machine's hostname.
#
# By default this file is consulted before DNS, so adding additional
# material here that then becomes out of date can lead to confusion.
# See nsswitch.conf(5).
#
::1			mybox.my.domain mybox
000.0.0.0		mybox.my.domain mybox
#
# RFC 1918 specifies that these networks are "internal":
# 10.0.0.0        -   10.255.255.255  (10/8 prefix)
# 172.16.0.0      -   172.31.255.255  (172.16/12 prefix)
# 192.168.0.0     -   192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

Please note that I've hidden the numbers, 000.0.0.0 is actually something else. Don't touch the default.

I hope this helps.

pfr

pin I 100% do not recall seeing that screen during the install 🤣 But I do tend to skip over things.

I'm guessing there isn't a way to find out what I named it?
Chapter 3.26
"You will then be asked for your “DNS domain”; if the machine is not in a registered public domain, it can be left blank."

perhaps I left it blank...

However, I've tried to set it as my.domain incase I just copied the install guide, I've also tried leaving it blank. neither seem to be correct because I am still getting this dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: DHCPv6 REPLY: No Addresses Available error

looks like I'm getting some practice installing again 😆

pfr Ok, let's take a turn as I believe we are going in the wrong direction.
dhcpcd[132]: iwn0: no IPv6 Routers available is no error, it probably just means your router is using IPv4.

What worries me is that it seems you are getting connected and disconnected over and over again. It makes me suspect something else...

By all means set-up /etc/hosts correctly in order to avoid future issues with xauth and X-connections.

Now,
1) How is the disk partitioned? One large /root + swap or, with smaller isolated partitions?
2) Could you post the output of ls /etc?
3) Could you post the lines regarding wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd you have in rc.conf?

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