Notes on OpenBSD Setup and Usage

There are a few things I do on any OpenBSD desktop, I'm collecting many of them here. This is borrowed from several sources including:

• romanzolotarev.com
• c0ffee.net

Set Caps as Ctrl

# wsconsctl keyboard.map+="keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L"

To make this run at boot, add keyboard.map+="keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L" to /etc/wsconsctl.conf.

Still need to add the following to .xsession when you are using xenocara:

setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:nocaps'

ThinkPad TrackPoint Scrolling

Enable middle button scrolling with the trackpoint

Add the following to .xsession:

xinput set-prop "/dev/wsmouse" "WS Pointer Wheel Emulation" 1
xinput set-prop "/dev/wsmouse" "WS Pointer Wheel Emulation Button" 2
xinput set-prop "/dev/wsmouse" "WS Pointer Wheel Emulation Axes" 6 7 4 5

Disable X Console

By default xconsole is on the xenocara login screen and stays into X11

sed -i 's/xconsole/#xconsole/' /etc/X11/xenodm/Xsetup_0
echo 'xset b off' >> /etc/X11/xenodm/Xsetup_0

Update fstab to add noatime

Update fstab(5) to add noatime:

# cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
# sed -i 's/rw/rw,softdep,noatime/' /etc/fstab

Enable apmd

Enable apmd(8):

For a laptop enable power management.

# rcctl enable apmd
# rcctl set apmd flags -A -z 7
# rcctl start apmd
ampd (ok)

To check current battery life run apm(8)

User Settings

Add your username to /etc/doas.conf

# echo 'permit persist keepenv username' > /etc/doas.conf

Add your user to staff group

Add your user to the staff group. This group has higher resource limits in login.conf. You'll need to log out and back in for this change to take effect.

usermod -G staff YOUR_USERNAME

Fix Screen Tearing (Intel only)

Pasted from c0ffee.net

The default modesetting driver doesn't use vsync, so you'll get a lot of tearing when scrolling webpages or watching videos. If you have an Intel-based video chipset, you can switch to the intel driver to get smooth video.

Create the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory:

mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Then, create intel.conf with the following contents:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "drm"
  Driver "intel"
  Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

Restart xenodm to restart the X server:

rcctl restart xenodm

My tmux setup

Allows mosh host -- tmux a. Uses C-z

curl https://laydros.net/docs/conf/tmux.conf -o ~/.tmux.conf

Disable SSH access except for key

Update /etc/ssh/sshd_config with the following:

PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
ChallengeResponseAuthentication no
UsePAM no

Then run:

rcctl restart sshd

Updating

Update/Patch System

Update the base system with syspatch(8):

# syspatch

Update Packages

Update packages with pkg_add(1) -u:

# pkg_add -u

Upgrade OpenBSD Version

First check the upgrade guide for the version you are upgrading too. Sometimes there are manual changes that must be done.

Then simply run sysupgrade(8):

# sysupgrade

After the upgrade is complete, make sure to run sysmerge(8) in case any config files have changed:

# sysmerge