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Once you've got the operating system running, there are a few things you need to do in order to bring the system into a properly configured state, with the most important ones described below. .(enum Configuring
p If you or the installation software haven't done any configuration of
a /etc/rc.conf , the system will drop you into single user mode on first reboot with the message
p .Dl /etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted.
p and with the root file system
q Pa / mounted read-write. When the system asks you to choose a shell, simply press .Key RETURN to get to a prompt. If you are asked for a terminal type, respond with the correct terminal type as discussed in the .Sx Once you've booted the diskimage section. .\} c vt220 (or whatever is appropriate for your terminal type) .\} and press .Key RETURN . At this point, you need to configure at least one file in the
a /etc directory. Change to the
a /etc directory and take a look at the
a /etc/rc.conf file. Modify it to your tastes, making sure that you set .Li rc_configured=YES so that your changes will be enabled and a multi-user boot can proceed. Default values for the various programs can be found in /etc/defaults/rc.conf, where some in-line documentation may be found. More complete documentation can be found in .Xr rc.conf 5 .
p If your
a /usr directory is on a separate partition and you do not know how to use c ed , you will have to mount your
a /usr partition to gain access to c ex or c vi . Do the following:
p .Dl # Ic "mount /usr"
p If you have
a /var on a separate partition, you need to repeat that step for it. After that, you can edit
a /etc/rc.conf with .Xr vi 1 . When you have finished, type c exit at the prompt to leave the single-user shell and continue with the multi-user boot.
p Other values that need to be set in
a /etc/rc.conf for a networked environment are .Ar hostname No and possibly .Ar defaultroute , furthermore add an .Ar ifconfig_int for your interface .Aq int , along the lines of
p
p or, if you have .Ar myname.my.dom in
p
p To enable proper hostname resolution, you will also want to add an
a /etc/resolv.conf file or (if you are feeling a little more adventurous) run .Xr named 8 . See .Xr resolv.conf 5 or .Xr named 8 for more information.
p Other files in
a /etc that may require modification or setting up include
a /etc/mailer.conf ,
a /etc/nsswitch.conf and
a /etc/wscons.conf . t Logging in
p After reboot, you can log in as .Li root at the login prompt. There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a networked environment, you should create an account for yourself (see below) and protect it and the .Dq root account with good passwords. Unless you have connected an unusual terminal device as the console you can just press .Key RETURN when it prompts for .Li Terminal type? [...] . t Adding accounts
p Use the .Xr useradd 8 command to add accounts to your system, .Em do not edit
a /etc/passwd directly. See .Xr useradd 8 for more information on the process of how to add a new user to the system. t The X Window System
p If you have installed the X window system, look at the files in
a /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc for information.
p You will need to set up a configuration file, see
a /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config.eg for an example. See .Lk http://www.xfree86.org/ and the XFree86 manual page for more information. .\}
p Don't forget to add
a /usr/X11R6/bin to your path in your shell's dot file so that you have access to the X binaries. t Installing third party packages
p If you wish to install any of the software freely available for l systems you are strongly advised to first check the .Nx package system. This automatically handles any changes necessary to make the software run on .Nx , retrieval and installation of any other packages on which the software may depend, and simplifies installation (and deinstallation), both from source and precompiled binaries. .(bullet More information on the package system is at .Lk http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/packages.html t A browsable listing of available packages is at .Lk ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/README.html t Precompiled binaries can be found at .Lk ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/ t Package sources for compiling packages can be obtained by retrieving the file .Lk ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/tar_files/pkgsrc.tar.gz They are typically extracted into
a /usr/pkgsrc (though other locations work fine), as with the command:
p .Dl # Ic "mkdir /usr/pkgsrc; tar -C /usr/pkgsrc -zxpf pkgsrc.tar.gz"
p After extracting, then see the
a README file in the extraction directory (e.g.
a /usr/pkgsrc/README ) for more information. .bullet) t Misc .(bullet Edit
a /etc/mail/aliases to forward root mail to the right place (run .Xr newaliases 1 afterwards.) t The
a /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file will almost definitely need to be adjusted; files aiding in this can be found in
a /usr/share/sendmail . See the .Li Tn README file there for more information. t Edit
a /etc/rc.local to run any local daemons you use. t Many of the
a /etc files are documented in section 5 of the manual; so just invoking
p .Dl # Ic man 5 Ar filename
p is likely to give you more information on these files. .bullet) .enum)
Indexes created Tue Oct 21 19:09:51 GMT 2025