[OpenBSD]

2.0 - Other OpenBSD information resources

2.1 - Web Pages of Interest

The official website for the OpenBSD project is located at: http://www.OpenBSD.org

A lot of valuable information can be found here regarding all aspects of the OpenBSD project.

Additional information for laptop users can be found at:
http://www.monkey.org/openbsd-mobile/


2.2 - Mailing Lists

The OpenBSD project maintains several popular mailing lists which users should subscribe to and follow. To subscribe to a mailing list, send an e-mail message to majordomo@openbsd.org. That address is an automated subscription service. In the body of your message, on a single line, you should include a subscribe command for the list you wish to join. For example:

The list processor will reply to you, asking for confirmation of your intent to join the list. The confirmation you send back to the list processor will be included in its reply to you. It will look something like this:

Once you have confirmed your intent to join, you will be immediately added to the list, and the list processor will notify you that you were successfully added.

To unsubscribe from a list, you will again send an e-mail message to majordomo@openbsd.org. It might look like this:

If you have any difficulties with the mailing list system, please first read the instructions. They can be obtained by sending an e-mail message to majordomo@openbsd.org with a message body of "help". These are the currently-available OpenBSD mailing lists:

Archives of the OpenBSD mailing lists can be found by visiting the mailing lists web page: http://www.openbsd.org/mail.html
You can also get mail archives from http://www.monkey.org/cgi-bin/wilma or http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/4/OpenBSD. These website contains searchable archives of the OpenBSD mailing lists.

Another mailing list that may be of interest is openbsd-mobile@monkey.org. This mailing list is a discussion of the use of OpenBSD in mobile computing.

To subscribe to this list use:

'echo subscribe | mail "openbsd-mobile-request@monkey.org"'

The archives for that can be found at: http://www.monkey.org/openbsd-mobile/archive/


2.3 - Manual Pages

OpenBSD comes with extensive documentation in the form of manual pages, as well as longer documents relating to specific applications. To access the manual pages and other documentation, be sure that you installed the man, misc, and text distributions.

Here is a list of some of the most useful manual pages for new users:

Also, If you are one of the people who didn't install the man28.tgz package, you can find all the OpenBSD man pages on the web at http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi.

In general, if you know the name of a command or a manual page, you can read it by executing `man command'. For example: `man vi' to read about the vi editor. If you don't know the name of the command, or if `man command' doesn't find the manual page, you can search the manual page database by executing `apropos something' or `man -k something' where something is a likely word that might appear in the title of the manual page you're looking for. For example:

The parenthetical numbers indicate the section of the manual in which that page can be found. In some cases, you may find manual pages with identical names living in separate sections of the manual. For example, assume that you want to know the format of the configuration files for the cron daemon. Once you know the section of the manual for the page you want, you would execute `man n command' where n is the manual section number.

In addition to the UNIX manual pages, there is a typesettable document set (included in the misc distribution). It lives in the /usr/share/doc directory. If you also installed the text distribution, then you can format each document set with a `make' in the appropriate subdirectory. The psd subdirectory is the Programmer's Supplementary Documents distribution. The smm subdirectory is the System Manager's Manual. The usd subdirectory is the UNIX User's Supplementary Documents distribution. You can perform your `make' in the three distribution subdirectories, or you can select a specific section of a distribution and do a `make' in its subdirectory. Some of the subdirectories are empty. By default, formatting the documents will result in Postscript output, suitable for printing. The Postscript output can be quite large -- you should assume 250-300% increase in volume. If you do not have access to a Postscript printer or display, you may also format the documents for reading on a terminal display. In each Makefile you'll need to add the flag -Tascii to each instance of the groff(1) commands (or execute it by hand). Some of the documents use the ms formatting macros, and some use the me macros. The Makefile in each document subdirectory (eg, /usr/share/doc/usd/04.csh/Makefile) will tell you which one to use. For example:

The UNIX manual pages are generally more current and trustworthy than the typesettable documents. The typesettable documents sometimes explain complicated applications in more detail than the manual pages do.

For many, having a hardcopy of the man page can be useful. Here are the guidelines to making a printable copy of a man page.

How do I display a man page source file? (i.e., one whose filename ends in a number, like tcpdump.8).

This is found throughout the src tree. The man pages are found in the tree unformatted, and many times through the use of CVS, they will be updated. To view these pages simply :

How do I get a plain man page with no formatting or control characters?

This is helpful to get the man page straight, with no non-printable characters.
Example:

How can I get a PostScript copy of a man page that's print-ready?

Note that [man_src_file] must be the man page source file (probably a file that ends in a number; i.e., tcpdump.8). The PostScript versions of the man pages look very nice. They can be printed or viewed on-screen with a program like gv (GhostView). GhostView can be found in our Ports Tree. Use the following groff(1) command options for getting a PostScript version from an OpenBSD system man page:

The above command line will only work for man pages formatted with the mdoc(7) macro package, used to format the BSD man pages. For getting a PostScript version from a third party software man page (either self-compiled or installed from the ports(7) or the packages(7)), do instead:


2.4 - Reporting Bugs

Before submitting any bug report, please read http://www.openbsd.org/report.html

Proper bug reporting is one of the most important responsibilities of end users. Very detailed information is required to diagnose most serious bugs. Developers frequently get bugs reports via e-mail such as these:

Hopefully most people understand why such reports get summarily deleted. All bug reports should contain detailed information. If Joe User had really expected someone to help find this bug, he or she would have supplied more information... something like this:

(Note: See report.html for more information on creating and submitting bug reports. Basically, detailed information about your hardware is necessary if you think the bug is in any way related to your hardware or hardware configuration. Usually, dmesg(8) output is sufficient in this respect. Next, a detailed description of your problem is necessary.)

For more information on getting the dmesg(8) output from a floppy, read FAQ 14.7 and FAQ 4.5.

If Joe User had a working OpenBSD system from which he wanted to submit a bug report, he would have used the sendbug(1) utility to submit his bug report to the GNATS problem tracking system. Obviously you can't use sendbug(1) when your system won't boot, but you should use it whenever possible. You will still need to include detailed information about what happened, the exact configuration of your system, and how to reproduce the problem. The sendbug(1) command requires that your system be able to deliver electronic mail successfully on the Internet.

If you have submitted a bug report and you want to check its current status without annoying anyone, the best ways are:

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