BRICKHOUSE

How-to install OpenBSD on a Libretto

Summary: This is a How-to document that I put together while installing OpenBSD 2.9 on a Toshiba Libretto 50CT. It walks you through preparations, the actual install, and post-install issues. The final result being a secure unix server with an extremely small footprint.

Goals for this installation

Why would you want to install OpenBSD on a machine like the Toshiba Libretto? Personally I had a few goals when I started, that is except from the fact that I had a machine to spare that otherwise just would have collected dust on a shelf somewhere. Anyway, these were my primary goals:

What I was aiming for was a minimal server which I could use to test python CGI scripting. Since I have a Netgear router to filter my internet connection, provide NAT and DHCP services, I wanted somewhere to put the syslog output generated when someone violates the filter rules. The Libretto could provide both these services.

Preparations

You do not do this kind of installation without some preparations. Installing a non-Microsoft OS on a laptop, which are always Windows centered, usually requires a pretty thorough knowledge of the hardware involved. Knowing your BIOS settings, the make of your hard drive, graphics card, and network card can be the difference between a fairly quick install and a long troublesome experience. Here are some useful things to know before you begin:

Pre-install issues

Before I started the Libretto dual-booted between Windows 95 and Slackware 6.0. The network card a 3Com PCMCIA card was supported according to the OpenBSD web site.

I also had I Dell laptop running Windows 2000 which I was going to use as the network install point, for this purpose it was running War-ftpd. Most hosts on the network use DHCP but since the Libretto was going to be used as a server it would get a permanent ip-adress.

Starting the OS install

What follows is a step-by-step account of the actual installation. Problems encountered, solutions found, log output, comments, and hints. Perhaps I could have summarized this and only related the most important stuff. But I feel that this complete account does a better job of showing what can be expected during an install.

On the first try, boot diskette fails to load. I suspect defective disk, got this:

booting fd0a:/bsd: 1302528+1875968 failed(5). will try /obsd
obsd failed(2). will try /bsd.old
bsd.old failed(2). will try /bsd

Above repeated once, then timeout. Created a new boot diskette and rebooted - got the (I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell? prompt. Misunderstood the info on swapping diskette drive and network card. This should be done immediately when you get the first boot prompt, i.e.

reading boot.......
probing: pc0 com0 com1 apm mem[639K 31M a20=on]
disk: fd0 hd0
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 1.26
boot> boot -c

I realised my error when I started to get questions about configuring the network, had to reboot again...

Now I saw that the kernel identified my network card! Back at the (I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell? prompt.

When I got to the Install from (f)tp, h(ttp)... prompt everything looked OK. Then I ran into some problems. The files on the CD were presented as all UPPERCASE when I tried to use ftp. My Win2k ftp server had no options to change this(but it did present unix like paths).

Searched Nonags for a free file rename utility, choose Flash Renamer 3.0, copied CD\2.9\I386 to a simulated /pub/OpenBSD/2.9/i386 directory and renamed all files to lower case. Tried again at the Install from (f)tp... prompt

This time it worked! Installed everything except game. Being on a local 10 Mbit network retrieving base29.tgz took one minute and 48 seconds.

Encounter weird problem when getting xshare29.tgz:

gzip: stdin unexpected end of file
tar: end of archive volume 1 reached
tar: sorry, unable to determine archive format

Reselected it and tried again, same error. Looked at the file on the Win2k box and the file is zero bytes! Check the CD, file is zero bytes there as well! Try the Internet, get it from Sunet, there it's 1,69 MB. Using Winzip on the Win2k box I can browse the file, should work now - and it does!

Choose MET as my time zone. Finally I get this:

CONGRATULATIONS! You have successfully installed OpenBSD! To boot the
installed system, enter halt at the command prompt. Once the system has
halted, reset the machine and boot from the disk.

I do # reboot

Looking for PCMCIA diskette drive takes a looong time, don't forget to disable that in BIOS! Generating host keys for ssh takes a while as well. Finally I get the login prompt, date and time are incorrect, but it's OpenBSD alright. Two and a half hours of work and the time is 1.24am, time to get some sleep!

How are things holding up?

Things doesn't always turn out as planned. Since I started running OpenBSD on my Libretto its only function has been to receive router/firewall logs. This has worked without a hitch, in fact I was nearing a years uninterrupted service when the machine stopped. When I investigated it turned out that I had managed to pull the power cord on the libretto when installing my new print server (my server box is extremely crowded). Restoring power proved that the apm services had shut down the box when the battery charge went critical and everything started normally when plugged in again, impressive! Due to my own mistake the libretto only managed a total uptime of 341 days. Proving that my misgivings about the pcmcia network card not standing up to the heat generated was incorrect.

What else, there has been some funny sounds from the hard disk on some occasions but nothing major. As a single function server it does its job extremely well requiring no maintenance (except for analyzing the firewall logs of course). The libretto is working much better than expected admittedly doing a little less than I had planned initially.