Re: BIOS Shows 4GB memory but OpenBSD 4.7/amd64 SMP detects only 3 GB

2010-05-27 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Siju George sgeorge...@gmail.com
but OpenBSD 4.7/amd64 SMP detects only 3 GB.

Is there anything more I should do to get the other 1 GB of RAM
recognized by the System?


This is normal. Large memory support is not yet included in
OpenBSD by default for amd64.



Re: BIOS Shows 4GB memory but OpenBSD 4.7/amd64 SMP detects only 3 GB

2010-05-27 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Siju George sgeorge...@gmail.com
On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Peter Kay (Syllopsium)
syllops...@syllopsium.com wrote:



From: Siju George sgeorge...@gmail.com
but OpenBSD 4.7/amd64 SMP detects only 3 GB.

Is there anything more I should do to get the other 1 GB of RAM
recognized by the System?


This is normal. Large memory support is not yet included in
OpenBSD by default for amd64.



Is there anything I can do  to get this by recompiling the kernel or 
something?
Yes and no; google for 'bigmem' in the misc list for marc.info. You have to 
edit

a source file and recompile the kernel.

However, it won't work (to be precise, it will probably crash on boot, or 
possibly

afterwards) unless you have an IOMMU, and most Intel systems don't.

OpenBSD doesn't support the AGP/PCI-e GART as an IOMMU, and I'm not sure
if it supports VT-d platforms (which you probably aren't running anyway). 
The

only option here is AMD.

Until the devs tell us it's working, it's not worth persevering with.

PK 



Re: Help contacting Richard Stallman

2010-05-26 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Julian Acosta j.acost...@gmail.com
Hello!

I'm from the Postgraduate Departmen of the ITCC University from Mexico,

Really we need to contact with Richard Stallman, just for give us his
opinion and answer us some questions about free software,
How can I contact him?
What's his real email?

You'd be better contacting the FSF rather than Stallman directly - don't you
think that's overkill?

He also may have conducted just one or two interviews and written a couple
of articles - just google.

Bear in mind that their favoured GPL 'free' software license is not free. It 
is

effectively free as in beer, but not as in free speech[1].  Their definition
includes being forced to give away source code, which whilst I understand
the viewpoint (of increasing free code), is by any measure a restriction of
your freedom.

BSD licenses, on the other hand, do not restrict what you can do, although 
it's

good karma to contribute back when using a large amount of free code from
others.

[1] The GPL allows products to be sold, but seeing as this must include
source code, after one sale it only needs someone with a compiler to 
distribute

it freely (as in beer).

Peter



Re: Source Overview

2010-04-20 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: J.C. Roberts list-...@designtools.org
The developers *CONSTANTLY* *ASK* *FOR* *YOUR* *HELP* with testing, but
this dull and heavy work is somehow below most people who just talk
about wanting to become developers and are looking for shortcuts to
becoming one.

Since validity is critical, if you cannot test properly and hopefully
help in the debugging, then you'll never be any good at writing code.

You're not wrong, but that's a rather black and white way of looking at the
world.

When someone starts a new activity - whether that's coding for OpenBSD,
baking cakes or similar, it's usually necessary to have a visible 'quick 
win' or

at least sign of progress that encourages the person to carry on and try a
little harder.

Testing does not usually fit into that category - it is indeed 'dull and 
heavy'

and usually something people expect to be paid for.

I understand and mostly agree with the viewpoint that the best way is to
download code, decide on what needs fixing and keep plugging at it
until success is achieved.

That's also fine if the OpenBSD community wants to perpetuate the type
of people that code for it and the size of the community.

If (and it is an if) the OpenBSD community wants more resource - both
coding and testing, there probably needs to be a degree more flexibility.

Or, in short, we need to not deter people straight away, and accept that
perhaps sometimes decent programmers start from ones that make lots
of mistakes.

Perhaps a ports TODO similar to the NetBSD ports TODO might help; it
doesn't require quite the same level of kernel or userspace hacking and
provides very visible feedback and thanks once completed.

Neither would I completely rule out a central TODO list linked off
OpenBSD.org. Sure, it might well be ignored, but the possibility remains
that someone might take up the task. NetBSD isn't doing too badly with
Google's Summer of Code initiatives, either.

It might not even be a bad idea to puff up new developers a bit :
'new developer Fred Bloggs decided to solve PR7738 squashing an
annoying bug in the ipz(4) driver. John Smith is very grateful for this
as it enabled him to use his new ServBladePro NZ20 server'

With specific reference to the ISA 486, if there are specific test cases 
that

can be run without taking up hours of interactive time, I have a suitable
VLB/ISA 486 that could run them. It's not something I'm interested in
using on a regular basis though - I've got other machines that
are far easier to work with.

PK 



Multibooting (was : OpenBSD culture)

2010-04-19 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)
OpenBSD does not require a primary partition, nor does NetBSD. Solaris does 
for the moment,

although code to fix that has been committed.

I have a Windows 7 x64, OpenBSD, Solaris, NetBSD multiboot. It's not that 
difficult to arrange.


I did most of the partitioning in Windows, setting up a primary partition 
for Solaris, then logical

partitions for OpenBSD and NetBSD.

Either the NetBSD or OpenBSD media can then be used to edit the partition 
types to the
recognised ones. Install as normal, then use EasyBCD to edit the 
Vista/Windows 7 boot menu
- modify as appropriate if you're using grub etc or XP.. 



Re: Multibooting (was : OpenBSD culture)

2010-04-19 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Brad Tilley b...@16systems.com
as appropriate if you're using grub etc or XP.. 


Another Option. Assuming a i386 or amd64 PC:

1. Put another hard drive into the computer.
2. Go into the BIOS and make the new hard drive have higher priority.
3. Boot the computer and install OpenBSD onto the new hard drive (Run
dmesg to be sure you're doing the right thing)
4. When you want to go back into the other OS, change the drive priority
in the BIOS and reboot.

Not pretty, but it works and keeps drives separate and no fooling with
grub, partitions, Windows boot loader, etc. 

If you're going to take /that/ approach, I would suggest a trayless SATA
caddy from someone like Icy Dock (be careful - some of their products are
garbage, but I can attest that the trayless, fanless SATA caddy is not).

You can easily swap the drives in and out without faffing with BIOSes.

I use precisely that method for swapping in test systems. 



Re: OpenBSD culture?

2010-04-19 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Siju George sgeorge...@gmail.com
On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 2:59 AM,  shweg...@gmail.com wrote:


Of course I boot using the Vista bootloader and easybcd to edit the
configuration, which saves a lot of headache. The important thing is it 
can

be done.
:)



How Do you Tell the OpenBSD Installer to install to a logical partition?

Same as to install to a primary partition - make sure the partition exists
and is of type A6, don't tell the installer you want to use the entire disk
and it'll handle most of the rest. 



Re: Testing bigmem properly on amd64?

2010-04-15 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Henning Brauer lists-open...@bsws.de
* Peter syllops...@syllopsium.com [2010-04-15 03:27]:

I know bigmem is still in a state of flux and can be enabled by
editing machdep.c and compiling a custom kernel.
What's the best way to test and report this?


none. bigmem is known broken, otherwise it would be enabled by
default. and tests proving the fact, well, you could test that water
is wet, too.

Fair enough. I'll wait until it's deemed testable again, then.

PK 



Re: 4.6 patch support

2010-03-22 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Andreas Gerdd kryptos...@gmail.com

when 4.8 comes out (a year after 4.6 came out) support for 4.6 will stop.


Quite short time.


Perhaps, but it /is/ free. There are undoubtedly some people who will
backport fixes to earlier versions if you paid them.




Our advise is to upgrade to a newer version and plan for that now.
It's not magic, in fact it is pretty easy in almost all cases.


It is not magic, but it is more than magic if you have only remote ssh
access and nothing else. :-(

You have multiple options, there's :

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade46.html

Which perhaps looks a little scary, but does work.

Alternatively try YAIFO http://sourceforge.net/projects/yaifo/ for an ssh
enabled install kernel. Of course, you should test both these options on
a local machine before attempting it remotely..

PK 



Re: OpenBSD Volunteer needed today in Los Angeles - Solved!

2010-02-23 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

On 2/22/2010 9:23 AM, Bret S. Lambert wrote:

Unless some benefactor is willing to come forward and deal with the
logistical headache of doing the paperwork and keeping it all as
up to date as it needs to be, it's not going to happen, even if
getting an EAL meant ponies, rainbows, and money trees for everybody.


To be severely offtopic, if getting an EAL genuinely meant ponies, rainbows 
and money trees
I'd be quitting my job and working on it right now.. I doubt I'm alone in 
that


What other motivation could you possibly want? Moon on an unobtanium stick? 
;)


PK 



Re: MFM disk geometry

2010-02-02 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Daniel Malament b...@anonix.net
Subject: Re: MFM disk geometry

Try looking for Total Hardware '99 - your controller might be
documented in there.


Nice!  Thanks.

http://th99.dyndns.org/c/C-D/20069.htm

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's actually all that configurable. 
Although I don't know what some of those settings actually mean.  Does 
anyone else see ways this can help, or care to explain the settings? :)


I think my first course of action would be to use DOS, or possibly OS/2, to
override the disk geometry, unless the disk has data on it that can only be
accessed from OpenBSD. Yes, I know it's intellectually more fun to get
OpenBSD to do it, but for a one off with little practical future use I think
I'd use something else. DOS, OS/2 and OpenBSD can of course all be booted
from floppy, thus avoiding any early initialisation nastiness.

I'm curious as to exactly what the difference between 'driven to interface' 
and

'intercepted by controller' is. Is this a standard interface vs INT13 thing?

I wouldn't call a P3 system with ISA particularly unusual - by the time
the P4 came out they were rare (although, readily available especially if
needed for industrial applications).

PK 



Re: MFM disk geometry

2010-02-02 Thread Peter Kay (Syllopsium)

From: Daniel Malament b...@anonix.net
To: Peter Kay (Syllopsium) syllops...@syllopsium.com
I think my first course of action would be to use DOS, or possibly OS/2, 
to
override the disk geometry, unless the disk has data on it that can only 
be

accessed from OpenBSD. Yes, I know it's intellectually more fun to get
OpenBSD to do it, but for a one off with little practical future use I 
think

I'd use something else. DOS, OS/2 and OpenBSD can of course all be booted
from floppy, thus avoiding any early initialisation nastiness.


I'm not sure what you're describing here.  Also, accessing the data from 
DOS still leaves the problem of moving it.  Or perhaps I didn't make it 
sufficiently clear that the goal was to copy the data off the drive...




I'm just saying that some operating systems more of the era that the drive 
was

created in are able to specify (override) disk geometries.

Obviously moving the data off the drive requires another hard drive, 
floppies,

a network etc exactly the same as under OpenBSD.

Alternatively, can disktab be used? The documentation is not entirely 
transparent
on this, but it does appear that disktab might be able to override BIOS 
parameters.


PK 



Re: OpenBSD in VirtualBox 3.1.x on non-SMP machine

2010-01-08 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Bayard Bell buf...@mac.com

Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support.

It would appear they've therefore made VT-x and friends non- 
configurable. You can file a bug report and see where that goes.

Would it be too cynical to suggest using a product which doesn't suck?

It really is a pity as I appreciated the work Innotek did for the OS/2
community. The one product that gets sold off to Sun and becomes quite
popular also turns out to be the one which continues to be mediocre.

Impressive, really, as I thought VirtualBox was derived from Qemu, and
OpenBSD works just fine under Qemu on both x86 and sparc platforms,
at least.

PK



Re: installboot: broken MBR

2010-01-06 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
OpenBSD works just fine in an extended partition, even if the documentation 
says it requires a primary partition - at least on amd64.


However, I seem to remember convention is that extended partitions should be 
at the end of the disk. In theory this probably shouldn't matter, provided 
the OS/boot manager is properly written..


I'm using a system that's multibooting Windows 7, Solaris, OpenBSD and 
NetBSD. All happily co-exist.


PK
- Original Message - 
From: Nick Holland n...@holland-consulting.net

To: T. Tofus von Blisstein tuffst...@googlemail.com
Cc: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 2:23 PM
Subject: Re: installboot: broken MBR



Nick Holland wrote:

T. Tofus von Blisstein wrote:

Hello,

I have linux and openbsd installed on a single drive. Linuxy fdisk shows

   Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   1   24017   1929165215  Extended
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2   *   24018   3040151279480   a6  OpenBSD


OpenBSD is in an extended partition...don't know that this works in all
(or any) cases, and the fact that it doesn't work in yours doesn't
surprise me.


ok, I have NO idea what I was seeing here, that's not an extended 
partition

at all.  I would have swore that said sda5...  *sigh*

Nick.




Re: decreasing the size of the distribution

2009-10-26 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Jan Stary h...@stare.cz
On Oct 26 00:10:20, Abdullah Sendul wrote:

Hi,

we are having a couple of openbsd servers, of which, the content is 
static.


I would like to identify all the files needed for this system to run,
and then move it to a flash disk to minimise the size of the
distribution


You can easily move it to a flash disk without minimizing anything.
I would tend to agree. OpenBSD is a small operating system and any 
reasonably sized flash storage will easily contain it. Why on earth make 
life more difficult for yourself - as soon as you cut the OS down it becomes 
harder to support!


I have a NetBSD system using an IDE-Compact Flash converter and simply use 
it as normal (at the time, OpenBSD didn't support the hardware fully).


I do use flashdist on an OpenBSD firewall, with an extremely cut down subset 
of OpenBSD. The reason for this is not distribution size, but that the OS 
remains unchanged every time it boots up (flashdist uses the storage device 
read only) and the possibility of corruption is removed.


Flashdist works well, but from experience I can say it's a bit of a pain in 
the arse to get working as it's always missing something. The first time I 
booted it up, I found it didn't include the firmware for my (wired) ethernet 
card by default, for instance.


Save yourself the hassle and just install as normal.

PK 



Re: 4.6 arriving

2009-10-09 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Lukas Ratajski l.rataj...@h-s-l.de
On 09.10.2009, at 08:30, patrick keshishian wrote:


arrived in burbank, ca (usa) today. thank you all!

tiny little puffy shrine:
   http://sidster.com/gallery/misc/2009/obsd46-32-21-mugs.jpg



Oh man, I'd LOVE to give the 2.1 version a boot opportunity on i386.  
Just for the sake of curiosity. Anyone offering a copy?

Given that 2.1 is just a *tiny* bit pricey, might I suggest :

1) http://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.1/i386/
2) A donation 


PK



Re: VirtualBox2.2+OpenBSD4.4 (fail)

2009-10-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

Hi guys,
(Pardon since lot of people use *BSD and Linux together but if rude,
I'll take it off-list)
Ok. It installs fine.
However, I keep getting segfaults on simple programs (such as xorgconfig).
(I don't have exact text/dmesg to dump right now but I can produce it
if required)

Is it that VirtualBox isn't emulating x86 hardware properly? Or, is it
a bug in obsd? (I am thinking the former). Any Ideas/suggestion are
entertained (Trying in VMware right now)
It's VirtualBox - looks like it's still crap. VMWare works fine, so does 
qemu.


PK 



Re: VirtualBox2.2+OpenBSD4.4 (fail)

2009-10-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: L. V. Lammert l...@omnitec.net
On Wed, 7 Oct 2009, Peter Kay - Syllopsium wrote:


It's VirtualBox - looks like it's still crap. VMWare works fine, so does
qemu.


As does VirtualBox with proper hardware support (AMD64 Socket AM2), ..
though we do not use X on VMx.
Are you seriously saying VirtualBox is a viable option by specifying one 
hardware

platform? I don't see why AMD64 really helps, or AM2 for that matter - some
AMD platforms have iommu but that shouldn't be relevant either.

Qemu runs OpenBSD without VT. So does VMWare server (although that will
transparently switch it on, at least on VMWare server x64)

OpenBSD wasn't the only OS VirtualBox had problems with last time I tried, 
either.

VMWare, Qemu and VirtualPC all worked flawlessly.

VT may help, but the VMM should run without it.

PK 



Re: OT: Laptop advice. SSD costs.

2009-09-17 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Henning Brauer lists-open...@bsws.de
* Robert rob...@openbsd.pap.st [2009-09-17 16:34]:

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:16:58 +0200
Henning Brauer lists-open...@bsws.de wrote:

 * Aaron Mason simplersolut...@gmail.com [2009-09-17 03:52]:
  Would these drives by any chance be similar to the 1.8 ZIF drives
  used in (*shudder*) 5th gen iPods?  I have one from my iPod that
  died a horrible death and it still runs fine.
 
  The drive's a 30 gigabyte Toshiba drive, and after the iPod it was
  used on a PATA to 1.8 ZIF converter and used on a PC running
  OpenBSD. If this suits your needs, I'm happy to donate it if you
  can cover postage from Australia.

 x40 do not use 1.8 zif drives but 1.8 drives with the regular 2.5
 pata interface. which is exactly the issue - nothing else does.

The iPod might not have suitable drives for the X41, but some other MP3
players do. Possibly the iRiver series, but my memory fails me.

I recommend browsing http://forum.thinkpads.com/ for more information.
They can give you chapter and verse on both the drives and compact flash
options.

Just how hard is hacking ACPI to get the X60/X61 working, anyway?
Currently I'm trying to fix an old X driver (on an AMD Geode based system
: it just turns the screen black) but perhaps I should help to get other 
bits of

hardware I own working.

PK 



Re: Defending OpenBSD Performance

2009-09-16 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: L. V. Lammert l...@omnitec.net
On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Henning Brauer wrote:



 Building from source is light years
 more difficult than 'apt-get update  apt-get upgrade, or 'yum 
 upgrade' or the

 like.

so don't fucking do it, use releases and packages.


*OR* learn how to use environment variables and set your PKG_PATH 
create an alias for pkg_find and get equivalent functionality.


That doesn't help if you're running OpenBSD-STABLE. Updating packages is 
easy.
Snapshots really aren't an option; OpenBSD is a good firewall and networking 
option

but selling the concept of snapshots to management is less than trivial.

The example of the BIND fix is a good one. On a server which hadn't built 
STABLE
before it was a bit of a faff to sort out, especially as IIRC the fix wasn't 
available in CVS
until some time after the advisory had been sent. I'll grant that the patch 
was available

direct on the OpenBSD website very quickly, though.

At the risk of a flaming, sysmerge is also a pain in the arse. Once you know 
how to use
patch files and diff properly I'm sure it is absolutely wonderful, but it 
also copes badly

with files that have not changed in any significant way.

Which is not to say that the enhancements in 4.6's install and beyond are 
not welcome,
of course. Oh, and to belay the predicatable 'well, why don't you fix it' 
response - I am

looking at fixing things, just not the above.

PK 



Re: Laptop advice. SSD costs.

2009-09-14 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Edd Barrett vex...@gmail.com
I have located someone willing to sell me an X41 tablet at a very
affordable price, however this is the model with the sucky hitachi
disk

[..snip..]

a) Is there anywhere you can get SSD's for cheaper than 100GBP. I only
really need 60GB or so.
b) Any other comments?
Unless the price is very, very good I wouldn't bother with the X41. If it's 
not out of warranty it will be so within a month or two.


Go for an X60 or X61 instead. With an X61 you'll get a Core2Duo, VT support, 
8GB memory support and an SATA disk. Plus it's easily possible to find one 
still in warranty until 2010 onwards. Only an idiot buys a laptop without a 
warranty, except when it's staggeringly cheap.


If you must persist with the X41, buy a big compact flash and IDE-CF 
adaptor. It will be faster than the horrid 1.8 PATA hard drive. There are 
articles on this online.


I went down this route last December. The choice was an X31/X32 at 100GBP or 
less (no warranty), an X41 at 200GBPish or an X60 or X61 from 400 upwards. 
My rationale was to go for broke. At 200GBPish, you can afford a new netbook 
which will be as fast (but not as well built) as the X41 and have a 
warranty. OK, so 400GBP is quite a jump, but for that you can find an X61 on 
ebay with a warranty and modern support.


The only thing that sucks about it is the X3100 graphics, but you're buying 
a sub notebook, not a gaming laptop.


PK 



Re: Laptop advice. SSD costs.

2009-09-14 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
- Original Message - 
From: David Vasek va...@fido.cz
It could make sense. However, you won't have working suspend/resume with 
OpenBSD yet and will have to fight with ACPI and its possible problems. 
Not speaking about hibernation, which X4x laptops have. Also, a keyboard 
without Microsoft keys is much more comfortable for some. Each has its own 
advantages.
I'll grant you that suspend is not supposed to be working yet (I haven't 
actually tried).

It will work, eventually, though.

Everything else is, as far as I'm aware, absolutely fine. Installation of 
OpenBSD on an X61
is a breeze, at least for amd64 (That's another advantage, of course : 
X31/X41 is 32 bit only).


The only issue I've found so far is that VLC 0.8.6 is considerably less 
usable than under Vista
x64; the sound lags the video to an unusable degree. I've not yet compiled 
VLC 1.0 to find
out whether the issue is VLC (not unlikely), the sound driver (possible) or 
X (very unlikely IMO).


Accelerated X is fine, and OpenGL on the X3100 appears to be fully 
functional too.


PK 



Re: VHS transfer on OpenBSD

2009-08-17 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Jan Stary h...@stare.cz
I need to transfer some old VHS tapes into (any) digital video format.
On OpenBSD of course. I understand I need

(1) a VCR, obviously, to play those tapes
(2) a TV card that can input what the VCR outputs
(3) a piece of software that can capture the input

Before I start shopping 80's style, does anyone have some general
DO/DONT advice about (2) and (3), or even a complete working solution?
I wouldn't start from there. Video capture isn't exactly my area, but my 
solution would be :


If it's only a couple of tapes - get someone else to do it. If it's old 
episodes of TV programmes - buy it on DVD/Bluray instead.


Otherwise :

1) Find decent hardware (not TV cards) that can capture compressed video in 
real time (2nd hand ebay may help).

2) Find software that uses that hardware
3) Use the operating system that software runs on.

This may include using Windows. I can rarely be arsed now to make things 
work in one particular OS for a short term one off job, if it's going to be 
tricky.


In particular, my (limited) experience is that video capture on TV cards is 
A Bit Shit, and capturing uncompressed video is not fun, even if modern 
hardware is probably adequate to handle it.


Also carefully note the limitation of the capture card/software. My ancient 
SGI O2 will happily capture full frame PAL in real time despite being rather 
slow. However - it'll only do that for certain types of compression and 
certain frame sizes - beyond that the custom hardware can't help. Likewise, 
many of these TV cards that feature 'real time video capture' do so at 
reduced image sizes and capture speeds.


PK 



Re: Open Vs Free BSD

2009-06-22 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Anton Parol anton.pa...@sun.com
OBSD is the best choice of OS for people who like violent little fish 
mascots.

And it has blue-boot-console-thingy (tm) . Ace.


I wasn't going to contribute to this thread, but I have to ask. *What* 
blue-boot-console-thingy?


I'm not sure it's sensible to do direct comparisons of 
NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD. At first glance the maxim of 'OpenBSD is more 
secure, NetBSD is more portable, FreeBSD has better support' applies, 
however OpenBSD has some platform support that NetBSD does not and NetBSD, 
for a Unix that on first glance looks a bit hardcore, has quite a large 
amount of functionality and seems quite willing to experiment with new 
features. FreeBSD is sometimes promoted as being mostly i386 based, but 
supports a number of platforms.


There's the cultural and administrative differences, too. Custom kernels are 
pretty much anathema to OpenBSD, encouraged on NetBSD and generally handled 
by modules on FreeBSD..


PK 



Re: Even and Odd numbered OpenBSD versions

2009-05-19 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Mark Romer romes...@gmail.com
Hello, just a simple question.  We have here at work a old hand at openbsd
and he says he only uses openbsd versions that are even numbered. (3.8, 
4.0,

4.2, 4.4 etc...)  I am not sure why, did not have a chance to ask him.
I believe that you should use the latest version available, but what does
everything else think?
Perhaps he's watching the shit (odd numbered) Star Trek films in between 
upgrades?


There's certainly no automatic suckage of odd numbered OpenBSD releases.

(also, various even numbered Star Trek films sucked too).

PK 



Re: Multiboot OpenBSD with Vista

2009-05-15 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: MANI mm.m...@gmail.com
Subject: Multiboot OpenBSD with Vista
First of all you need to know I am running OpenBSD on my laptop and PC
at home happily as sole OS, but unfortunately I need to dual boot my
PC at Office because of some proprietary softwares we need at company,
the other OS is Microsucks Windows Vista


The easiest solution by far is to install Vista first but leave space on the 
hard disk. Run the OpenBSD install and adjust the partition values so that 
OpenBSD is using the space instead of 'all the disk'. Once installed, use 
bcdedit to add an entry for OpenBSD pointing at the partition.


It 'just works'. Personally I don't even dislike Vista that much, provided 
it's given plenty (32 bit : 2GB, 64 bit : 4GB) of RAM. I favour 64bit, even 
if the driver support is less comprehensive and the memory requirements are 
higher.


PK 



Re: Shared IRQ

2009-05-14 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Henry Sieff henry.si...@gmail.com
To: Joco Salvatti salva...@gmail.com




http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq12.html

12.7.3

2009/5/14 Joco Salvatti salva...@gmail.com:

Hi,

I would like to know if a different hardware can shared the same IRQ
with another?
12.7.3 is accurate, however there is a difference between 'can it' 'should 
it' and 'will it'


'should it?' - yes, it should
'can it?' - yes, it can
'will it?' - that's the tricky one. Some devices just don't share interrupts 
well. Perhaps it's shit hardware, a shit APIC, crappy BIOS, naff driver - 
whatever.


PCI devices can theoretically share interrupts, but that doesn't necessarily 
mean they will.


PK 



Re: OT: 10GbE Physical Network Taps

2009-05-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: J.C. Roberts list-...@designtools.org
To: Johan Fredin jo...@spelaroll.se


On 09-05-07 05.00, J.C. Roberts wrote:
 If anyone here mistakenly thinks they can actually run *ANALYSIS* at
 these speeds with off the shelf components...

 BAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Well, depends on what you mean by off the shelf. Procera Networks
is doing layer 7 analysis at 40Gbps FD with their PacketLogic PL10k.
The hardware used for this is sourced from companies that anyone can
by hardware from as far as I know.

Of course it's not x86 stuff, but it's off the shelf. :)

This is really rather getting off topic, but I would suggest that 'off the 
shelf' only applies when there are many well known shelves where the kit may 
easily be obtained, preferably with multiple implementations of the 
hardware. If you can't drive to a random three decent suppliers and find it 
in one of them, it is not 'off the shelf'.


If the kit can be obtained from a restricted set of sources and features 
highly up to date technology, yet basically only requires money and a phone 
call to start the process it is 'leading edge' (if it features old 
technology it is now over the hill and is 'legacy')


If you're calling a company to source FPGA/DSPs or to contract someone to 
make it for you, you're now into the 'bleeding edge'


PK 



Re: USB-PS2 converter with KVM?

2009-04-27 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: J.C. Roberts list-...@designtools.org
Subject: USB-PS2 converter with KVM?




I'm attempting to use a USB-to-PS2 converter and running the PS2
through a Belkin KVM. The converts I bought seem to be old USB 1.1
stuff, and they don't play very well with any OS.

[..snip..]

Can anyone suggest a brand (and model) for a good quality USB-PS2
converter that plays well with Belkin KVM's?

Newlink USB-PS/2 convertors are quite good.

However, I suspect your problem is the Belkin - not the convertor. My SGI O2 
boxes *really* don't like the Belkin Omnicube I still have somewhere, and my 
pentium OS/2/DOS box won't see the mouse unless the KVM is switched to that 
box on bootup..


Solution : ebay! I got a very nice Compaq (rebadged Avocent, IIRC) eight way 
KVM for about thirty quid


PK



Re: Build a custom kernel to installation

2009-04-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Ricardo Augusto de Souza ricardo.so...@cmtsp.com.br
Could you please tell me the steps I  must follow?
Is it possible enable it at boot -c?
I don't wish to be rude, but you're not reading what people are telling you 
:



aac is not enabled in snapshots. you still need to build your own on
another machine.


It is not possible to enable it using boot -c, as aac support is 
deliberately disabled due to poor documentation from adaptec.


Look at the documentation on how to create a custom kernel. Your best option 
is to create a custom ramdisk kernel, which you can then netboot off and 
install over the network, otherwise you're going to have to build your own 
cd image which is a bit more involved but still not that difficult.


If you do do the ramdisk based install, remember to either patch a custom 
(non ramdisk - i.e. normal) kernel into /mnt following the install, or 
download all the sets to a local FTP/HTTP/'whatever install method' site and 
replace bsd/bsd.mp with an aac enabled kernel.


Be certain to update your RAID controller firmware to the latest version.

I have a Dell PE2400 (Perc2/Si) working fine with an aac enabled kernel 
here, although I might be a bit dubious of running it on a production basis.


PK 



Re: Dual-head OpenBSD 4.5 and NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

2009-03-27 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Kamil Monticolo k.montic...@gadu-gadu.pl
To: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 10:38 AM
Subject: Dual-head OpenBSD 4.5 and NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT




Hi folks.
I have 4.5 GENERIC.MP on my machine and I'd like to have it dual-head.
My dmesg is at the bottom, if you want more information or output, I'll 
give that.

I tried to setup new xorg.conf with two screens but without any luck.
I also googled for any idea, but it also fails.
It works on linux with modified config, but I don't want it on my 
machines.

Every idea or question is welcome. Thanks.


I can tell you it works fine on a 7600GT - I only needed to do X -configure. 
Don't even think I had to explicitly tell it to use xrandr. This was on 
4.4/amd64


I do actually have two 7600GTs on the box I'm using; the second isn't 
recognised automatically though - so if you're looking to use more than two 
monitors it may be a bit more tricky.


PK 



Re: Dual-head OpenBSD 4.5 and NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

2009-03-27 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Kamil Monticolo k.montic...@gadu-gadu.pl
To: Peter Kay - Syllopsium syllops...@syllopsium.com
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:29:21 -
Peter Kay - Syllopsium syllops...@syllopsium.com wrote:


I can tell you it works fine on a 7600GT - I only needed to do 
X -configure.

Don't even think I had to explicitly tell it to use xrandr. This was on
4.4/amd64

I do actually have two 7600GTs on the box I'm using; the second isn't
recognised automatically though - so if you're looking to use more than 
two

monitors it may be a bit more tricky.



Sounds great:) Are you running X11 out of the box on -CURRENT?
Maybe I misconfigured something a bit, but I don't know what .
I'm looking for a solution for two screens only.
As per my first message - 4.4/amd64. Can't remember if it was a snapshot or 
not.


Literally all I needed to do was X -configure, if I remember correctly. I'll 
try with an up to date 4.4 snapshot at some point.


PK 



Re: Dual-head OpenBSD 4.5 and NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

2009-03-27 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Kamil Monticolo k.montic...@gadu-gadu.pl
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:57:10 -
Peter Kay - Syllopsium syllops...@syllopsium.com wrote:



Literally all I needed to do was X -configure, if I remember correctly. 
I'll

try with an up to date 4.4 snapshot at some point.


Peter, can You post your configuration here?
I confgured X server as you did, but it didn't work for me.
Thank you.
Sure. I may even get around to doing multi adaptor too (I have three 
monitors connected to the system). May be Sunday before I can get it sorted, 
but I'll post to the list.


PK 



Re: Ideas for Getting MATLAB/Mathematica to utilize sparc64 ram that runs openbsd

2009-03-25 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 02:09:08 -0700 Vivek Ayer vivek.a...@gmail.com
wrote:


Hi guys,

I realize openbsd/sparc64 is probably the best port of any OS to the
sparc64 architecture, however I work in an environment where
matlab/mathematica are greatly needed. I know openbsd/i386 has linux
binary emulation, which would do the trick, but I want to use these 2
awesome Sun blade machines that have loads of RAM waiting to be used
(8 GB in all just dying to be used). Do you all have any suggestions
on how I can matlab/mathematica to possibly use this much memory even
though they probably won't be on those systems? Is there some
memcached-like solution for this. I have a linux computer on the
network which has matlab/mathematica installed. Is there anyway I can
generically donate memory from openbsd to linux to make linux think it
more? Or some VM solution? I don't know.
There is the obvious solution of putting 8GB of memory in the x86 box - even 
several year old x86 chipsets now support up to 8GB+.


I don't know your personal situation - perhaps you're in an educational 
establishment which has cheap matlab licenses, but can't easily buy 
hardware. Still, if your place of work can afford 2500$ on a license, it can 
probably also afford 8GB RAM if you can justify your need for it. Memory can 
be quite cheap these days.


Don't make life difficult for yourself if you can avoid it :).

PK



Re: HP Proliant DL385 with Squid at a Gigabit-switch - bad network performance

2009-03-16 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
Whilst I can't comment on the foibles of modern Cisco switches, I can 
certainly say that Cisco switches I've used somewhat more recently than 
fifteen years ago (but more than five) refused to autonegotiate to some 
servers. So far they remain the only switches I've had to manually set the 
speed and duplex on, AFAICR.


Given that experience, I can certainly see why people might enforce a 
configuration for longer than might be necessary.


PK
- Original Message - 
From: Michal mic...@sharescope.co.uk

To: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: HP Proliant DL385 with Squid at a Gigabit-switch - bad network 
performance




Sorry but I worked for a very successful company in the UK that didn't use
auto neg's on Cisco switches and routers so I wouldn't call it evil AT 
all,

please explain why manual is evil.

C

-Original Message-
From: owner-m...@openbsd.org [mailto:owner-m...@openbsd.org] On Behalf Of
Henning Brauer
Sent: 16 March 2009 13:29
To: OpenBSD
Subject: Re: HP Proliant DL385 with Squid at a Gigabit-switch - bad 
network

performance

* Laurent CARON lca...@unix-scripts.info [2009-02-28 21:33]:

Steve Shockley wrote:

On 2/27/2009 8:43 AM, Laurent CARON wrote:

- Forcing speed on switch
- Forcing speed on nic


Why?  This practice made sense when 10baseT gear from different vendors
wasn't compatible, but not for the last 15-20 years.


This practice still makes sense, at least with broadcom cards.


no, it is pure bullshit and the source of many many many errors.

just because cisco failed miserably in implementing autoneg for years.
even they managed now.

so stop spreading this bullshit. autoneg is good. manual is evil. that
simple.


I always do force the speed on servers.


this is extremely stupid.

--
Henning Brauer, h...@bsws.de, henn...@openbsd.org
BS Web Services, http://bsws.de
Full-Service ISP - Secure Hosting, Mail and DNS Services
Dedicated Servers, Rootservers, Application Hosting - Hamburg  Amsterdam




Re: nfs proxies

2009-02-19 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Jason Dixon ja...@dixongroup.net
People always say this but never mean it.  I have proof, and I'm sure
Theo does too.  You have no idea how much a real feature costs to
implement.  When you present them with the costs they always balk.


To be fair, some of them do mean it, but just don't understand the cost of 
development. Others don't think about it and are caught up in zealotry. 
Some /think/ they're happy to pay, but when they actually have to put

cash on a table suddenly realise they don't want it that badly.

Not that this helps a great deal when the end result is almost the same.

Peter



Re: Port ZFS to OpenBSD

2009-01-15 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: bofh goodb...@gmail.com



I have to ask - if you're not copying the code, but only copying the
concept/technical requirements over (ie, a rewrite), that new code
would be bsd licensed, right?

Probably, but this is filesystem code. The last thing you want to do is to
replace complex, generally well debugged code with new complex not
so well debugged code!

That applies for all software, but doubly so for code that can corrupt
data and crash the entire system.

PK



Re: Best supported arch/workstation

2009-01-08 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Matt KP60 mattk...@gmail.com
Hi, I am looking at purchasing a workstation to put OpenBSD on for
programming development. What is the best supported arch overall? Or even
better what is your most recommended workstation for running OpenBSD?

i386, without any doubt whatsoever (imo).

amd64 is almost as well supported.

I've never personally had any issues with the sparc port (32 bit), but all 
those machines are old and slow.


sgi could frankly do with a bit of work - but hey, it *is* the only commonly 
available full 64 bit OS available for the O2.


PK 



Re: laptop choice

2008-12-23 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
IBM's X series are 12.1 only which is outside your 15-17 suggestion. If 
you want a cheap X series laptop preferably go for the X32 - it's faster and 
newer than the X31 and has a 2.5 hard drive. The X40/X41 are very OpenBSD 
compatible but have a 1.8 hard drive (slow, expensive, difficult to 
replace).. You might find an X32 with at outstanding warranty if you're 
lucky. Otherwise go for a T series.


I wouldn't bother going for an X series unless you need a really portable 
laptop with lots of battery life. OK, so it's cool, but you get more out of 
an equivalently priced T series including a much better graphics chipset. If 
not IBM/Lenovo,  I also tend to favour Toshiba laptops, or possibly HP.


I presume you've read http://www.openbsd.org/i386-laptop.html and 
http://jcs.org/laptops/


I think your primary concern should be the warranty. Either get something 
very cheap with no warranty, or something more expensive with a warranty 
(which can then be renewed with IBM), plus obviously insurance.. Buying 
something inbetween is stupid.


Personally I've just gone rather over the top and ordered a second hand X61 
from ebay (assuming it arrives!). Core2Duo (64 bit, supports VT and NX)  and 
a Santa Rosa chipset (up to 8GB, with painfully priced 4GB modules, should I 
ever need it) should mean I won't need to change it for a *long* time 
(hopefully!).


PK 



Re: laptop choice

2008-12-23 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Mihai Popescu B.S. mihai...@gmail.com
I don't need dual core since the support for this is scarce in many
operating systems.

With respect, scarce in what operating system apart from say, DOS?

I can't think of any Unixes or Unix alikes that don't have SMP support (even 
Plan 9 does). OS/2 has had it as an option since the early 90s. NT right 
from the start. Same with BeOS.


Unless you're using something really obscure I'm struggling to think of 
anything else.


IBM laptops have an excellent record for reliability and support, plus one 
of the best keyboards you can get. Not cheap though. It's also worth 
mentioning that the T series have both the p (professional, discrete 
graphics, possibly other faster stuff) and non p (integrated graphics) 
series. Not really an issue unless you need OpenGL or games, though.


PK 



Re: OpenBSD

2008-12-05 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Markus Hennecke [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You mean it works great except for newer cards, dual-head setups and a 
fast X desktop? Yes, but I would not call that great.
That's not true. 8800GT support, at the very least, was added back in 
OpenBSD 4.3

according to the changelog.

I'm using two 7600GTs - X works without a hitch in dual head (xrandr) on the 
first adapter and
appears to be accelerated. So far I've not configured it to use the second 
adapter and run three

screens.

PK 



Re: Virtual Consoles in OpenBSD/macppc

2008-11-13 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Pedro de Oliveira [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi,

Anyone here using OpenBSD/macppc knows if its possible to enable more than
one virtual console? I cant seem to find any info about that in the FAQ.

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq7.html

It's not supported. Use 'screen' from packages instead.

PK 



Hanging X

2008-11-10 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
I'm trying to get X running on my amd64 (Core2Duo) box. It starts but 
freezes shortly although OpenBSD is still accessible from serial 
console/ssh. X cannot be killed via kill or kill -9.


My configuration is marginally unusual as it contains two 7600GTs. 
X -configure detects a multihead configuration but only ever displays on one 
display - the other monitor stops displaying with an out of range error (if 
it is out of range it must be sending something pretty funky as the monitor 
can handle up to 2048x1536x75Hz).


Also, the second 7600GT appears not to be detected? From dmesg :

vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT rev 0xa1
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
ppb1 at pci0 dev 3 function 0 Intel 82975X PCI rev 0x00: apic 2 int 16 
(irq 255)

pci2 at ppb1 bus 2
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT rev 0xa1 at pci2 dev 0 function 0 not configured

Any advice how to diagnose this before I submit a bug? Also, how do I 
activate the second graphics card?


Basic hardware should be fine : I run a three monitor configuration in 
Windows without a problem.


PK 



Re: 4.4 recently installed

2008-11-10 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Martin Schrvder [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2008/11/10 Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

Put in a couple of big hard drives (I don't know what's there already)
and use it as network storage (backup your other computers).


And then wonder why it crashes when it does the first fsck. :-(
AFAIK 64M will only allow you to fsck 64GB.

Seriously: Get yourself a new machine if you can. It will be much
faster and consume less power.
I'd second that.. Whilst I get the occasional desire  for Old Computer Kit 
and some old computers have a few neat features, generally there really 
isn't much to compete with a decent Core2Duo/Quad box - it's not that 
expensive, is low power, fast and supports virtualisation. I can say that 
considering I also run OpenBSD on a sparcstation 10 and an SGI O2..(*)


I do have a 266MHz Pentium thin client running an embedded OpenBSD firewall; 
I wouldn't necessarily recommend that in your case as yours won't be fanless 
or consume minimal power. I also have a 486 DX2-66 as a bittorrent box - 
that actually runs NT 4. Much though I like OpenBSD at times, it's far more 
effective to add the large disk driver and run utorrent.


If you must use your box it'll perform adequately for network based 
operations - mail, web servers, pf, etc etc. It's a bit underpowered for 
modern X although you should at least be able to run multiple X terms. 
Compilation times on older kit tend to be painful.


(*) The O2 has some nice video hardware - which is useless in anything other 
than Irix. The sparcstation has a decent boot monitor, and a cheap multiport 
10Mb network card available - which is useless now ADSL goes faster than 
10Mb. The O2 uses SCA disks which are still available, if a lot more 
expensive than SATA. The sparcstation uses narrow SCSI disks which are now 
defunct, loud and slow. There are workarounds for all of this, but running 
modern kit really is a lot easier.


PK 



openbsd sgi - uname -m, packages and mips64

2008-11-10 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
A bit of an oddity. On all other platforms (at least I think so), the output 
from 'uname -m' matches the name of the directory under packages, except 
under sgi, for which the directory is 'mips64'. Any chance of this changing 
for 4.5?


I'm presuming no-one is porting to mips32 (netbsd supports the O2, 
Indigo,Challenge,Indy etc).


I realise the O2 port requires a bit of love; I'll see if I can contribute 
stuff myself.


Still, congrats on shipping what appears to be the only 64 bit OS on the O2, 
regardless of the existing flaws (Irix on the O2 is 32bit, as is netbsd and 
the workable versions of Linux. 64bit Linux is purely experimental at this 
stage)


PK 



Re: openbsd sgi - uname -m, packages and mips64

2008-11-10 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Matthew Weigel [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Peter Kay - Syllopsium wrote:

A bit of an oddity. On all other platforms (at least I think so), the
output from 'uname -m' matches the name of the directory under packages,


For all supported platforms, the name of the package directory matches
'machine -a'.  Because packages are compiled for a specific processor 
type,

not a platform.  For example, the mac68k and mvme68k platforms both have a
'machine -a' output of 'm68k' - ditto with the macppc and socppc 
platforms.

That makes perfect sense, thanks for the response.

PK 



kernel debugging broken in 4.4-CURRENT?

2008-10-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
Kgdb kernel debugging appears to have been broken in 4.4-CURRENT for a week 
if not longer. The exact same config file works creating a debug kernel 
under 4.3. I've updated kernel, userland etc. The same thing happens under 
every virtualised environment I throw it at (vmware, qemu, virtualbox).


I get : 'com0: at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4panic: com_isa_attach: mapping 
failed ' followed by a kernel panic.


In 4.3 it correctly refers to 'pccom' and says that kgdb has been attached.

I can't be the only one needing to do kernel debugging with 4.4-CURRENT - am 
I missing something?


kernel config file is :

include arch/i386/conf/GENERIC

rmoption DDB
makeoptions DEBUG=-g
option KGDB
option KGDB_DEVNAME=\com\,KGDBADDR=0x3f8,KGDBRATE=9600

PK 



Re: kernel debugging broken in 4.4-CURRENT?

2008-10-07 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Ted Unangst [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Peter Kay - Syllopsium [EMAIL PROTECTED]



You might be the only one using kgdb.  Between 4.3 and 4.4 the pccom
device was folded into com, which may not have gone perfectly.

OK. A further question, then.

What I'm trying to do is debug if_bridge and if_pppoe as I'm stupid enough 
to try hacking the source to bridge PPPoE(4) to another interface (it 
doesn't work, and if you hack if_bridge to tell it to add it to the bridge, 
the bridging doesn't work).


if_bridge and if_pppoe are both kernel level files, and I want to set 
breakpoints to find out where it is/isn't working, so kgdb seemed like the 
best thing to use.


Given that I'm in a minority of kgdb users, what's everyone else using in 
cases like this?


PK 



Re: 4.4-current on XenServer 5

2008-09-22 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Stephan A. Rickauer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: misc misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 11:24 AM
Subject: 4.4-current on XenServer 5




In know virtualization is not one of the primary targets of OpenBSD.
However, in case someone is interested, here's a dmesg of 4.4-current
booting bsd.rd on latest XenServer 5 (Express, with Intel VT). As you
can see, there is no harddisk detected.

I am ready to help testing if a developer wants to look at it.

Cheers,
Stephan




pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 Intel 82441FX rev 0x02
pcib0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 Intel 82371SB ISA rev 0x00
pciide0 at pci0 dev 1 function 1 Intel 82371SB IDE rev 0x00: DMA,
channel 0 wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: QEMU HARDDISK
wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA48, 5120MB, 10485760 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 0, DMA mode 2


Looks like a harddisk to me... am I missing something?

PK



Re: Newbie some problem with OpenBSD

2008-09-12 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Edd Barrett [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Josh Grosse [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Ling Xiaoheng [EMAIL PROTECTED]; OpenBSD Misc Maillist 
misc@openbsd.org

Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: Newbie some problem with OpenBSD



On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Josh Grosse [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
wrote:

Upgrading by compiling source is unsupported.


I don't see why that wouldn't work, just so long as you sysmerge.
Actually, the issue isn't whether it would work, or whether it's supported. 
The real question is : Why bother?


Compiling by source is vastly slower and more involved than whacking the 
install cd/disk/netboot in and telling the system to upgrade.


As mentioned in response to the original post, it's rarely necessary to 
compile the source. At this point, there are precisely five fixes included 
in 4.3-stable, which is what the majority of people running production 
systems should be running..


The time to compile source is when it brings a tangible benefit. In this 
case, it doesn't.


PK 



Bridging pppoe(4) to another NIC - is this even possible, as it appears impossible to change the MTU?

2008-09-08 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium
I'm trying to create a transparent bridging firewall with a NIC at one end 
and PPPoE(4) at the other end. In this case I'm using OpenBSD 4.4-CURRENT 
sparc (same thing happens on 4.2) on a sparcstation 10 with quad ethernet 
(qe - 10Mb).


The problem is that the bridge cannot be established, probably because the 
MTUs do not match.


The MTU of qe(0 to 3) is 1500.
The MTU of pppoe0 (established via pppoe(4)) is 1492

I can't change the MTU of qe0-3.
There's an overhead of 8 bytes in PPPoE - does this therefore mean it can 
never go above 1492?

The MTU of pppoe can be modified, but only to 1492 or lower.

Additionally I am confused by the OpenBSD 4.4 changelist item :

'Adapt maximum permitted MTU on pppoe(4) to the MTU of the connected 
Ethernet/VLAN interface.'


This, to me, potentially indicates that the MTU of pppoe could be matched to 
the MTU of the NIC (although, is this perhaps limited by the fact that to do 
so it would need 1500+8 bytes of overhead, and thus blow the 1500 Ethernet 
MTU limit?). I tried applying 4.4-CURRENT and the MTU of pppoe stays at 
1492.


Any solution? Find a NIC which can have its MTU lowered, perhaps?

Also, even if I could get the MTUs to match, bridge complains on startup 
because pppoe0 does not yet exist. Is there a more elegant solution than a 
shellscript with a delay and a series of brconfig commands to fix this?


Cheers!

Peter 



Re: Bridging pppoe(4) to another NIC - is this even possible, as it appears impossible to change the MTU?

2008-09-08 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: ropers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Peter Kay - Syllopsium [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: Bridging pppoe(4) to another NIC - is this even possible, as 
it appears impossible to change the MTU?




2008/9/8 Peter Kay - Syllopsium [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
I'm trying to create a transparent bridging firewall with a NIC at one 
end

and PPPoE(4) at the other end. In this case I'm using OpenBSD 4.4-CURRENT
sparc (same thing happens on 4.2) on a sparcstation 10 with quad ethernet
(qe - 10Mb).

The problem is that the bridge cannot be established, probably because 
the

MTUs do not match.

The MTU of qe(0 to 3) is 1500.
The MTU of pppoe0 (established via pppoe(4)) is 1492

I can't change the MTU of qe0-3.
There's an overhead of 8 bytes in PPPoE - does this therefore mean it can
never go above 1492?
The MTU of pppoe can be modified, but only to 1492 or lower.

Additionally I am confused by the OpenBSD 4.4 changelist item :

'Adapt maximum permitted MTU on pppoe(4) to the MTU of the connected
Ethernet/VLAN interface.'

This, to me, potentially indicates that the MTU of pppoe could be matched 
to
the MTU of the NIC (although, is this perhaps limited by the fact that to 
do
so it would need 1500+8 bytes of overhead, and thus blow the 1500 
Ethernet

MTU limit?). I tried applying 4.4-CURRENT and the MTU of pppoe stays at
1492.

Any solution? Find a NIC which can have its MTU lowered, perhaps?

Also, even if I could get the MTUs to match, bridge complains on startup
because pppoe0 does not yet exist. Is there a more elegant solution than 
a

shellscript with a delay and a series of brconfig commands to fix this?

Cheers!

Peter


When you say you want PPPoE at the other end, what exactly do you
mean? Is the PPPoE stuff on a separate box that you reach via RJ-45,
ie. does your net look loke this:

Intranet -- int_if--OpenBSD_bridge--ext_if -- DSL modem w/ PPPoE

Or do you want the PPPoE login/dialup stuff to be handled by
OpenBSD, ie. does your network look like this:

Intranet -- int_if--OBSD_box--ext_if -- DSL modem in dumb as a brick 
mode


If it is the latter then I'm not quite sure where you want to build a
transparent bridge. Because IIRC your external interface in this
scenario would be a tun interface and you would use NAT. Unless of
course... Ok, let me ask you this then: What kind of Internet
connectivity do you have / what kind of Internet connection do you
have from your ISP? If you are just using an ordinary SOHO user PPPoE
offering from a regular ISP, then you more than likely just get ONE
IPv4 address, which means you will have to use NAT, not bridging, no
two ways about it. Or am I horribly misunderstanding something?

A somewhat confused
--ropers


I have an ADSL connection with 8 IPs, so the topology looks like :

Intranet --Int_if--OpenBSD_bridge_with_pf--ext_if--ADSL router bridging 
PPPoE packets.


The router is in bridging mode so 'all' it does is shift the PPPoE packets 
from the POTS (telephone) connection to the Ethernet port. It passes PPPoE 
on to the external OpenBSD interface pppoe(4) is bound to. The pppoe(4) 
should establish the ppp connection and receive the traffic for all 8 IPs. I 
don't have the space or the inclination to subnet, so I want to transparent 
bridge with pf for firewalling between pppoe and the internal interface.


I realise 1:1 NAT is an option here, but I'd prefer my internal systems to 
remain with WAN addresses, but protected by a firewall. I'm doing all this 
because otherwise I have to lose one IP address to my router, and I'd rather 
not.


(What I *actually* want to do eventually is to have three interfaces on the 
firewall. One internal, one DMZ, one external (pppoe bound) where 
external-dmz is a transparent firewall and external-internal is NAT)


PK 



Re: Bridging pppoe(4) to another NIC - is this even possible, as it appears impossible to change the MTU?

2008-09-08 Thread Peter Kay - Syllopsium

From: Vijay Sankar [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Peter Kay - Syllopsium [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: misc@openbsd.org
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: Bridging pppoe(4) to another NIC - is this even possible, as 
it appears impossible to change the MTU?




On September 8, 2008 06:43:45 am Peter Kay - Syllopsium wrote:


Also, even if I could get the MTUs to match, bridge complains on startup
because pppoe0 does not yet exist. Is there a more elegant solution than 
a

shellscript with a delay and a series of brconfig commands to fix this?



Not sure whether the following is appropriate under your circumstances but 
I

can try to describe a different solution.

We have 8 IP addresses with an ADSL connection (6 with the ISP here calls 
it

a framed route and 2 that are static) and we set pf up as follows:

ext_if=pppoe0
int_if=rl0
dmz_if=dc1

scrub out on $ext_if max-mss 1440

One of the 6 addresses is the DMZ interface's IP and I am routing all the
other public IP's through this. So I don't have to bridge in my scenario 
and
it has worked very well. Interface fxp0 is connected to the DSL modem and 
has

the Ethernet default MTU of 1500 and pppoe0 has MTU of 1492.

fxp0: flags=8843UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1500
   lladdr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
   media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX full-duplex)
   status: active

pppoe0: flags=8851UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST mtu 1492
   dev: fxp0 state: session
   sid: 0x64e5 PADI retries: 0 PADR retries: 0 time: 36d 04:02:01
   sppp: phase network authproto pap authname x
   groups: pppoe egress
   inet aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd -- eee.fff.ggg.hhh netmask 0x

I am using kernel -mode pppoe.

--
Vijay Sankar, M.Eng., P.Eng.
ForeTell Technologies Limited
59 Flamingo Avenue, Winnipeg, MB Canada R3J 0X6
Phone: +1 204 885 9535, E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


OK.. I presume routing is also turned on in your scenario?

Unless I'm missing something though, aren't you losing two of your 8 IP 
addresses - one to PPPoE and one to the DMZ? A main point of me running 
PPPoE on the firewall is that I only lose one of my 6 available (obviously 
network and broadcast eat two of my eight) WAN addresses. If I wanted to 
lose two I could leave it as is, with the router establishing the PPPoE 
connection, the external interface on the firewall with a WAN IP, and a 
transparent bridge to the DMZ.


PK