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[20080820]
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NetBSD 5.0 preview: User visible changes in NetBSD-current
I've found a bit of spare time upgrade a NetBSD 4.0 system
to NetBSD-current (4.99.69), and during the usual update procedure
(boot new kernel; build.sh install=/; etcupdate) I found
a number of user-visible changes over NetBSD 4.0 that I'd like
to spotlight here:
- audit-packages and download-vulnerability-list are now part
of the NetBSD base system, there's no longer a need to install
them via pkgsrc. I haven't found any hooks to run them automatically
every night, but that can be done easily via cron(8). The commands
in question are:
# download-vulnerability-list
# audit-packages
- Per-user-tmp: Currently, /tmp is shared by all users. In order to avoid name
clashes (example: I use /tmp/foo for temporar data as both root
and "normal" user), the /tmp directory can be made to be unique
for each user now, much the same way as this is done e.g. on
Mac Os X. To do so, set
per_user_tmp=yes
in /etc/rc.conf and reboot. In effect, /tmp is unique for
each user then. The implementation is done via magic symlinks:
# cd /tmp
# pwd
/private/tmp/0
# ls -l /tmp
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 18 Jul 13 22:41 /tmp -> /private/tmp/@ruid
- httpd: NetBSD now ships with a web server in base. Seriously, I have no
idea why this is, but it can be enabled by removing the comment
signs of the 'httpd' service in /etc/inetd.conf, and by populating
/var/www. After that access by both IPv4 and IPv6 is possible.
- dhcpcd: NetBSD has shipped with ISC's DHCP client so far, which uses quite
a bit or memory. As a supplement, Roy Marples' dhcpcd has been added
to the base system. In order to use it for interface xx0, put
ifconfig_xx0="dhcp"
into your /etc/rc.conf file (replacing the old "dhclient=yes"
setting).
On a test system, both dhclient and dhcpcd had ps(1) display a
VSZ (virtual size in Kbyte) of ~770, but while dhclient had a RSS
(real memory / resident set size, in Kbyte) of 1068, dhcpcd only
had a RSS of 548, i.e. the new DHCP client daemon uses about half
as much RAM as the ISC dhclient.
- /boot.cfg: Last, NetBSD's second stage bootloader can now load a configuration
file on the i386 and amd64 platforms. Assuming the bootloader was
updated after the upgrade ("cp /usr/mdec/boot /boot"), the config
file /boot.cfg is used to print the boot menu and offer appripriate
actions:
# cat /boot.cfg
menu=Boot normally:boot netbsd
menu=Boot single user:boot netbsd -s
menu=Disable ACPI:boot netbsd -2
menu=Disable ACPI and SMP:boot netbsd -12
menu=Drop to boot prompt:prompt
default=1
timeout=5
So much for a first adventure into NetBSD-current. Feel free to point
out more goodies in NetBSD-current that will be new in NetBSD 5.0
over NetBSD 4.0.
[Tags: boot, dhcp, dhcpcd, httpd, pkgsrc, tmp]
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