After the first boot of my NetBSD installation, these are some extra steps I like to make right away to get a system off to a good start! Package management Run commands as root Use a different console font Alias for root mail Check for vulnerable packages Create SSH keys Custom login Custom prompt Accelerate keyboard repeat speed Adjust console brightness Microcode updates Clear console at logout Package management Package management is one area where the differences between the Linux philosophy and the BSD philosophy about how to build a system becomes apparent. Linux is an operating system kernel. Developers take this kernel and combine it with various independent software projects in a collection of packages that is released as a Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc.). In contrast, each of the BSDs develop their own kernel and combine it with system components that are developed together “in-house” and released as a whole. The idea being that this approach leads to a more robust and tightly integrated core operating system. Third-party “userland” packages not included in the core may still be installed at the discretion of the user. Source code and binary packages are provided by pkgsrc(7), the NetBSD packages collection, which can be viewed online sorted alphabetically. Install binary packages directly from remote package repositories using pkgin, a user-friendly frontend to the pkg_* tools. Switch to root if not already logged in as such: su - Set PKG_PATH: PKG_PATH="http://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/$(uname -p)/$(uname -r|cut -f '1 2' -d.)/All/" export PKG_PATH Install: pkg_add pkgin pkg_add -v mozilla-rootcerts-openssl To keep packages up-to-date, compare installed packages to the versions available in repositories and generate a list of packages due for an upgrade by running the command: pkgin update To add a package: pkgin install [package] One of the first packages I like to install on any BSD or Linux system is sl(1): pkgin install sl More: NetBSD Guide: Installing additional software Run commands as root I created a user account (example: foo) during installation and added myself to the wheel group. Install doas to run root-level access commands, and allow members of wheel to do so by default, by creating doas.conf: pkgin install doas echo "permit :wheel" > /usr/pkg/etc/doas.conf To allow user foo to run commands as root without asking for a password: echo "permit nopass keepenv foo" >> /usr/pkg/etc/doas.conf Log out as root, log back in as your user, and use doas to run any commands that require root privileges. Use a different console font The base system includes a selection of console fonts in /usr/share/wscons/fonts. I like the Terminus font. Open the wscons.conf file for editing: doas vi /etc/wscons.conf Uncomment the desired TerminusXX font size, and set the font for use in the console: font Terminus32-ISO8859-1 - - - /usr/share/wscons/fonts/ter-132n.wsf . . . setvar ttyE0 font Terminus32-ISO8859-1 setvar ttyE1 font Terminus32-ISO8859-1 setvar ttyE2 font Terminus32-ISO8859-1 setvar ttyE3 font Terminus32-ISO8859-1 Save changes and exit. Restart: doas service wscons restart More: NetBSD Guide: Console drivers Alias for root mail Rather than login to root to collect system mail, I forward the root user’s mail to my non-root user’s inbox. Open the aliases file for editing: doas vi /etc/mail/aliases Modify: # root: # operator: … uncomment the lines and add my username (example: foo): root: foo operator: foo Save changes and exit. Let the MTA know about the modification by running the newaliases(1) command with no arguments: doas newaliases Test whether mail is indeed being forwarded by using the mail(1) command as my user to send root a message: $ mail root Subject: Test new aliases Is it working? Press CTRL-d to exit and send message. $ mail Mail version 9.1alpha 2009-02-25. Type ? for help. "/var/mail/foo": 1 message 1 new >N 1 foo@bsdbox.home.arp Wed Sep 2 11:51 3/456 "Test new aliases"Check for vulnerable packages Set the system to automatically run a daily update of its local database of known vulnerable packages, check if any of these packages are installed, and inform the user if so: echo "fetch_pkg_vulnerabilities=YES" | doas tee -a /etc/daily.conf By default this job will run in the early morning hours. For a machine that is typically powered off at night, I modify the time that /etc/daily is executed to the middle of the day. Run: doas crontab -e Modify: # do daily/weekly/monthly maintenance 15 12 * * * /bin/sh /etc/daily 2>&1 | tee /var/log/daily.out | sendmail -t 30 12 * * 6 /bin/sh /etc/weekly 2>&1 | tee /var/log/weekly.out | sendmail -t Save changes and exit. More: afterboot(8) Create SSH Keys Create an SSH public/private key pair to facilitate passwordless logins to remote servers and (optional) configure remote access to the localhost. Read More Custom login After entering a username and password, the NetBSD default login generates multiple lines of output, some of it more useful (Last login) than others (copyright dates). Read More Custom prompt I set my user prompt to display the hostname and current working directory. For the sh shell, open .shrc: vi ~/.shrc Add: # Enable command execution in prompt strings set -o promptcmds get_pwd() { case "$PWD" in "$HOME") echo "~" ;; "$HOME"/*) echo "~${PWD#$HOME}" ;; *) echo "$PWD" ;; esac } PS1='$(hostname -s):$(get_pwd)\$ ' Save changes and exit. Reload the config: . ~/.shrcAccelerate keyboard repeat speed The speed at which a key press is repeated can be accelerated by modifying wscons.conf: doas vi /etc/wscons.conf Adjust these two variable: repeat.del1, which specifies the delay (in milliseconds) before character repetition starts, and repeat.deln, which sets the delay between each character repetition once started. Example: # Change keyboard repeat speed to faster settings. setvar wskbd repeat.del1 300 setvar wskbd repeat.deln 20 Save changes and exit. Restart to activate: doas service wscons restartAdjust console brightness All my laptops have integrated Intel graphics, and to adjust the console brightness I use intel-backlight. Install: doas pkgin install intel-backlight Display current brightness: $ intel_backlight Current backlight value: 33% (505/1515) Set brightness to 100%: $ intel_backlight 100 Current backlight value: 100% (1515/1515) This only lasts for the current session. To auto-enable at boot, modify rc.local: doas vi /etc/rc.local Add: # set screen brightness to 100% on boot if [ -x /usr/pkg/sbin/intel_backlight ]; then /usr/pkg/sbin/intel_backlight 100 fi Save changes and exit. Microcode updates For devices with Intel CPUs, install: doas pkgin install intel-microcode-netbsd To use intel-microcode-netbsd-<DATE> to update your system’s microcode, verify that hw.firmware.path includes your pkgsrc prefix: $ /sbin/sysctl hw.firmware.path hw.firmware.path = /libdata/firmware:/usr/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata Copy the sample rc.d file to apply updates during the boot process to /etc/rc.d: doas cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/intel-microcode /etc/rc.d/ To ensure the configurations are correct without rebooting, manually trigger the initialization script: doas /etc/rc.d/intel-microcode start If it silently exist, the config is OK. Add microcode=YES to my /etc/rc.conf and reboot. Verify: $ cpuctl identify 0 | grep -i microcode cpu0: microcode version 0xf6, platform ID 7Clear console at logout For the default sh shell, I create the .exitrc file: echo "type clear >/dev/null 2>&1 && clear" > ~/.exitrc Modify .shrc: vi ~/.shrc Add: case "$-" in *i*) # interactive mode settings go here . . . # Clear terminal at logout test -f $HOME/.exitrc && trap ". $HOME/.exitrc" EXIT esac Save changes and exit. More: How to clear terminal after logging out? You can like, share, or comment on this post on the Fediverse 💬