How to Install OpenBSD on a Soekris board

The next tutorial is based on: http://www.dbnet.ece.ntua.gr/~adamo/howto/Soekris/
I simple add a few important things to make the installation more usable.

1. Setup a DHCP server to use PXEboot

This example use the ISC DHCP server. The relevant part in the dhcpd.conf is:

host foo {
hardware ethernet XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX;
fixed-address foo.bar.tee.gr;
filename "pxeboot";
}

The above configuration presupposes that your DHCP server is going to be used as a TFTP server also.
Actually, you only need to add the line > filename "pxeboot"; < to your global configuration and will work exactly the same.

2. Stuff to do on the TFTP server

Assume that the tftp root directory is /tftpboot. Place on /tftpboot the file pxeboot that is found on the OpenBSD distribution.

Also, place on /tftpboot the install kernel, bsd.rd.

Next, mkdir /tftpboot/etc. Create a file named /tftpboot/etc/boot.conf with the following contents:

set tty com0
stty com0 9600
boot bsd.rd

If your 4801 console is setup to a different baud rate, either change this here, or on your 4801's console. Refer to the Soekris BIOS documentation on how to do this.

If your inetd/xinetd makes use of /etc/hosts.{allow,deny} then take care to allow foo.bar.tee.gr to access the tftp server.

3. Netboot your Soekris 4801

According to the Soekris documentation on the Soekris BIOS prompt you should type:

boot f0

4. Install OpenBSD 4.0

This procedure is best covered by the OpenBSD documentation.

What you need to remember is that you are installing on a Compact Flash. Therefore you do not need a swap partition. But OpenBSD does not install unless you have a swap partition. So you can create a swap partition with size of 1 (yes one):

Initial label editor (enter '?' for help at any prompt)

> p
device: /dev/rwd0c
type: ESDI
disk: TOSHIBA THNCF25
label:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 32
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 512
cylinders: 978
total sectors: 500736
free sectors: 0
rpm: 3600
16 partitions:
#             size        offset  fstype [fsize bsize  cpg]
a:        500703            32  4.2BSD   2048 16384  578
b:             1        500735    swap
c:        500704            32  unused      0     0
> w

> q

When you need to select what sets to install, you select only:

[X] bsd
[ ] bsd.rd
[ ] bsd.mp
[X] base40.tgz
[X] etc40.tgz
[ ] misc40.tgz
[ ] comp40.tgz
[ ] man40.tgz
[ ] game40.tgz
[ ] xbase40.tgz
[ ] xetc40.tgz
[ ] xshare40.tgz
[ ] xfont40.tgz
[ ] xserv40.tgz

Set name? (or 'done') [bsd.mp] done

This is a minimal that you need to the OpenBSD works correctly, but if you prefer a more complete system install the rest.
After the installation over, halt the system.

5. Configure the System

Boot in single user mode. Interrupt the OpenBSD boot procedure (not the Soekris BIOS one) and type boot -s. When the system boots, perform the next steps:

mount -o rw /
mkdir /mfs

Modify /etc/rc (adding a line after the rm -f /fastboot entry in /etc/rc with: ". /usr/local/sbin/setup_mfs.sh") to execute the following script:

#Create the mfs and populate it
#

echo mfs: mounting /mfs...
mount_mfs -s 16384 /dev/wd0b /mfs
mkdir -p /mfs/var/run
mkdir -p /mfs/var/tmp
mkdir -p /mfs/var/db
mkdir -p /mfs/var/db/pkg
mkdir -p /mfs/var/cron
mkdir -p /mfs/dev
chmod 1777 /mfs/var/tmp
cp -Rp /var/log.template /mfs/var/log
cp -Rp /var/spool/mqueue /mfs/mqueue
cp -Rp /var/spool/clientmqueue /mfs/clientmqueue
cp -Rp /var/mail.template /mfs/mail
cp -Rp /var/db.old /mfs/var/db 
cp -Rp /var/tmp.old /mfs/var/tmp 
cp -Rp /var/run.old /mfs/var/run 
cp -Rp /var/cron.old /mfs/var/cron 
echo /dev...
tar cf - -C /dev/devtmp . | tar xpf - -C /mfs/dev

#
# EOF 

Change to the right permissions:

chmod 700 /usr/local/sbin/setup_mfs.sh

Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and /etc/mail/submit.cf and change the entries for clientmqueue and mqueue to point at /mfs/{clientmqueue,mqueue}
Modify the /etc/syslogd.conf to use the /mfs/var instead of /var/ or to output the logs for the console. I suggested that you use the syslogd.conf from flasdist.

After that do:

rm -rf /tmp
mv /var/tmp /var/tmp.old
mv /var/db /var/db.old
mv /var/run /var/run.old
mv /var/cron /var/cron.old 
mv /var/log /var/log.template
mv /var/mail /var/mail.template
ln -s /mfs/var/tmp /tmp
ln -s /mfs/var/tmp /var/tmp
ln -s /mfs/var/run /var/run
ln -s /mfs/var/log /var/log
ln -s /mfs/mail /var/mail
ln -s /mfs/var/db /var/db
mkdir /dev/devtmp
cd /dev/devtmp
sh ../MAKEDEV pty0
rm ../ttyp* ../ptyp* 
for i in *; do
ln -s /mfs/dev/$i /dev/$i
done

You have to take care with the script above and the shell lines wich create the links! You need to add all the other directories/files where your system need to write, to the /mfs.

And don't forget: you can't have any program writing to the CF! Or you may have problems to mount the / as read-only.

mount -o ro /

After this you can halt the system.

6. After the first reboot, edit /etc/fstab to mount / as read-only:

 /dev/wd0a / ffs ro 1 1

On a 1GB Compact Flash:

# mount
/dev/wd0a on / type ffs (local, read-only)
mfs:301 on /mfs type mfs (asynchronous, local, size=16128 512-blocks)
# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/wd0a      959M    146M    765M    16%    /
mfs:301        7.7M    158K    7.2M     2%    /mfs

Francisco Rente, 12-2006 <frente at cognitrap dot org>

syslog.conf from Flashdist

# $OpenBSD: syslog.conf,v 1.12 2001/08/23 13:27:52 camield Exp $
#
*.err;kern.debug;auth.notice;authpriv.none;mail.crit /dev/console
*.err root
*.notice;auth.debug root
*.alert root
*.emerg *

# You need to run syslogd with the -u option on the remote host.  When
# that host runs with -u, you are vulnerable to syslog bombing, and should
# block external syslog packets from untrusted hosts.  This reduces the
# vulnerability from hosts which do not send spoofed packets.
*.notice;auth,authpriv,cron,ftp,kern,lpr,mail,user.none MESSAGES
kern.debug,user.info,syslog.info,daemon.info MESSAGES
auth.info,authpriv.debug AUTHLOG

# Uncomment to log messages from sudo(8) and chat(8) to their own
# respective log files.  Matches are done based on the program name
# Program-specific logs:
#!sudo
#*.* /var/log/sudo
#!chat
#*.* /var/log/chat