My OpenBSD Setup

how I use i3wm on OpenBSD 6.2

Today, I'm going to write about my personal experience with OpenBSD on my Laptop as an OpenBSD user. I think I will come back day to day and update this blog post, but currently the following topics are coeverd:

TODO:

Network Managers

I found netctl(8) an interesting utility.It supports network configuration separated based on Location or nwids (for wifi networks). The manpage is complete (OpenBSD Style) but the idea is simple and clear. netctl keeps hostname.if(5) configuration files categorized in /etc/hostname.d directory by loaction or nwids and then symlink them into /etc at startup or by switching to different locations on-demand:

$ ls -lR /etc/hostname.*
/etc/hostname.run0 -> /etc/hostname.d/nwids/BlackHole.nwid

/etc/hostname.d:
nwids

/etc/hostname.d/nwids:
BlackHole.nwid
ZWLan.nwid

But if you liked netctl, you might also wanted to read Vincet's Blog Post, Network Manager Control for OpenBSD. Basically nmctl is an improved version of rewritten in python. He also has an intergration section with openbox (if you're using).

Filesystem Auto-Mount

To automatically mount USB storage sticks, hotplugd(8) is the tool. You can find a nice example script in the manual or here at TuM'Fatig Automount USB stick on OpenBSD:

Update: an improved version of the script can be found in here.

$ doas rcctl enable hotplugd
$ cat /etc/hotplug/attach
#!/bin/sh

DEVCLASS=$1
DEVNAME=$2
MOUNTROOT="/mnt"
DEBUG=1

case $DEVCLASS in
2)
        # disk devices
        disklabel=`/sbin/disklabel $DEVNAME 2>&1 | /usr/bin/sed -n '/^disk: /s/^disk: //p'`
[ $DEBUG == 1 ] && logger -i "hotplugd discovered DISKLABEL $disklabel"
        case $disklabel in
        "SCSI disk")
                slices=`/sbin/disklabel $DEVNAME 2>&1 | \
                sed -n '/^ *[abd-z]: /s/^ *\([abd-z]\):.*/\1/p'`
                for slice in ${slices}; do
[ $DEBUG == 1 ] && logger -i "hotplugd attaching SLICE $slice of DEVICE $DEVNAME"
                        [ ! -d $MOUNTROOT/$DEVNAME$slice ] && mkdir -p -m 1777 $MOUNTROOT/$DEVNAME$slice
                        mount /dev/$DEVNAME$slice $MOUNTROOT/$DEVNAME$slice
                done
                ;;
        esac
        ;;
3)
        # network devices; requires hostname.$DEVNAME
        sh /etc/netstart $DEVNAME
        ;;
esac
$ doas chmod 0755 /etc/hotplug/attach
$ doas rcctl restart hotplugd

that's it. The next time you plug a USB stick, it will be mount at /mnt/${dev}${slice} directory automatically.

Desktop Notification Daemon

If you're using window managers like i3wm, you might find dunst a perfect simple notification daemon which is avilable as package:

$ doas pkg_add dunst

That's it. you don't need to enable anything since sending any message to notification, automatically runs dunst. To test the notification:

$ notify-send helloWorld

And here's a simple configuration I picked from a quick search on the web:

$ cat ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc 
[global]
font = Iosevka Term 11

# Allow a small subset of html markup:
#   <b>bold</b>
#   <i>italic</i>
#   <s>strikethrough</s>
#   <u>underline</u>
#
# For a complete reference see
# <http://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html>.
# If markup is not allowed, those tags will be stripped out of the
# message.
allow_markup = yes
plain_text = no

# The format of the message.  Possible variables are:
#   %a  appname
#   %s  summary
#   %b  body
#   %i  iconname (including its path)
#   %I  iconname (without its path)
#   %p  progress value if set ([  0%] to [100%]) or nothing
# Markup is allowed
format = "<b>%s</b>\n%b"

# Sort messages by urgency.
sort = no

# Show how many messages are currently hidden (because of geometry).
indicate_hidden = yes

# Alignment of message text.
# Possible values are "left", "center" and "right".
alignment = center

# The frequency with wich text that is longer than the notification
# window allows bounces back and forth.
# This option conflicts with "word_wrap".
# Set to 0 to disable.
bounce_freq = 0

# Show age of message if message is older than show_age_threshold
# seconds.
# Set to -1 to disable.
show_age_threshold = -1

# Split notifications into multiple lines if they don't fit into
# geometry.
word_wrap = yes

# Ignore newlines '\n' in notifications.
ignore_newline = no

# Hide duplicate's count and stack them
stack_duplicates = yes
hide_duplicates_count = yes


# The geometry of the window:
#   [{width}]x{height}[+/-{x}+/-{y}]
# The geometry of the message window.
# The height is measured in number of notifications everything else
# in pixels.  If the width is omitted but the height is given
# ("-geometry x2"), the message window expands over the whole screen
# (dmenu-like).  If width is 0, the window expands to the longest
# message displayed.  A positive x is measured from the left, a
# negative from the right side of the screen.  Y is measured from
# the top and down respectevly.
# The width can be negative.  In this case the actual width is the
# screen width minus the width defined in within the geometry option.
#geometry = "250x50-40+40"
geometry = "300x50-15+49"

# Shrink window if it's smaller than the width.  Will be ignored if
# width is 0.
shrink = no

# The transparency of the window.  Range: [0; 100].
# This option will only work if a compositing windowmanager is
# present (e.g. xcompmgr, compiz, etc.).
transparency = 5

# Don't remove messages, if the user is idle (no mouse or keyboard input)
# for longer than idle_threshold seconds.
# Set to 0 to disable.
idle_threshold = 0

# Which monitor should the notifications be displayed on.
monitor = 0

# Display notification on focused monitor.  Possible modes are:
#   mouse: follow mouse pointer
#   keyboard: follow window with keyboard focus
#   none: don't follow anything
#
# "keyboard" needs a windowmanager that exports the
# _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW property.
# This should be the case for almost all modern windowmanagers.
#
# If this option is set to mouse or keyboard, the monitor option
# will be ignored.
follow = none

# Should a notification popped up from history be sticky or timeout
# as if it would normally do.
sticky_history = yes

# Maximum amount of notifications kept in history
history_length = 15

# Display indicators for URLs (U) and actions (A).
show_indicators = no

# The height of a single line.  If the height is smaller than the
# font height, it will get raised to the font height.
# This adds empty space above and under the text.
line_height = 3

# Draw a line of "separatpr_height" pixel height between two
# notifications.
# Set to 0 to disable.
separator_height = 2

# Padding between text and separator.
padding = 6

# Horizontal padding.
horizontal_padding = 6

# Define a color for the separator.
# possible values are:
#  * auto: dunst tries to find a color fitting to the background;
#  * foreground: use the same color as the foreground;
#  * frame: use the same color as the frame;
#  * anything else will be interpreted as a X color.
separator_color = frame

# Print a notification on startup.
# This is mainly for error detection, since dbus (re-)starts dunst
# automatically after a crash.
startup_notification = false

# dmenu path.
dmenu = /usr/bin/dmenu -p dunst:

# Browser for opening urls in context menu.
browser = /usr/bin/firefox -new-tab

# Align icons left/right/off
icon_position = off
max_icon_size = 80

# Paths to default icons.
icon_folders = /usr/share/icons/Paper/16x16/mimetypes/:/usr/share/icons/Paper/48x48/status/:/usr/share/icons/Paper/16x16/devices/:/usr/share/icons/Paper/48x48/notifications/:/usr/share/icons/Paper/48x48/emblems/


[frame]
width = 3
color = "#8EC07C"

[shortcuts]

# Shortcuts are specified as [modifier+][modifier+]...key
# Available modifiers are "ctrl", "mod1" (the alt-key), "mod2",
# "mod3" and "mod4" (windows-key).
# Xev might be helpful to find names for keys.

# Close notification.
close = ctrl+space

# Close all notifications.
close_all = ctrl+shift+space

# Redisplay last message(s).
# On the US keyboard layout "grave" is normally above TAB and left
# of "1".
history = ctrl+grave

# Context menu.
context = ctrl+shift+period

[urgency_low]
# IMPORTANT: colors have to be defined in quotation marks.
# Otherwise the "#" and following would be interpreted as a comment.
frame_color = "#3B7C87"
foreground = "#3B7C87"
background = "#191311"
#background = "#2B313C"
timeout = 4

[urgency_normal]
frame_color = "#5B8234"
foreground = "#5B8234"
background = "#191311"
#background = "#2B313C"
timeout = 6

[urgency_critical]
frame_color = "#B7472A"
foreground = "#B7472A"
background = "#191311"
#background = "#2B313C"
timeout = 8


# Every section that isn't one of the above is interpreted as a rules to
# override settings for certain messages.
# Messages can be matched by "appname", "summary", "body", "icon", "category",
# "msg_urgency" and you can override the "timeout", "urgency", "foreground",
# "background", "new_icon" and "format".
# Shell-like globbing will get expanded.
#
# SCRIPTING
# You can specify a script that gets run when the rule matches by
# setting the "script" option.
# The script will be called as follows:
#   script appname summary body icon urgency
# where urgency can be "LOW", "NORMAL" or "CRITICAL".
#
# NOTE: if you don't want a notification to be displayed, set the format
# to "".
# NOTE: It might be helpful to run dunst -print in a terminal in order
# to find fitting options for rules.

#[espeak]
#    summary = "*"
#    script = dunst_espeak.sh

#[script-test]
#    summary = "*script*"
#    script = dunst_test.sh

#[ignore]
#    # This notification will not be displayed
#    summary = "foobar"
#    format = ""

#[signed_on]
#    appname = Pidgin
#    summary = "*signed on*"
#    urgency = low
#
#[signed_off]
#    appname = Pidgin
#    summary = *signed off*
#    urgency = low
#
#[says]
#    appname = Pidgin
#    summary = *says*
#    urgency = critical
#
#[twitter]
#    appname = Pidgin
#    summary = *twitter.com*
#    urgency = normal
#
# vim: ft=cfg

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