Soekris-based OpenBSD System Operational

Inspired by this article, I finally deployed my Soekris Net4801 small form factor system. I used a hard drive-based installation as I figured that would be the easiest way to experiment with OpenBSD and the Soekris. The installation was simple. First I swapped my main laptop HDD for an extra 3250 MB HDD to hold OpenBSD. Next I rebooted the laptop using the OpenBSD 3.5 installation CD, and installed OpenBSD. Here is my partition scheme: 

$ df -h

Filesystem    Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on

/dev/wd0a     125M  21.8M  97.8M    18%    /

/dev/wd0f     156M   2.0K   148M     0%    /tmp

/dev/wd0d     2.0G   169M   1.7G     9%    /usr

/dev/wd0e     501M   6.9M   469M     1%    /var

After reboot, I made these edits:

/etc/ttys 

tty00 "/usr/libexec/getty std.19200" vt100  on secure

/etc/boot.conf 

set tty com0

stty com0 19200

/etc/hostname.sis0 

inet 172.27.20.13 255.255.255.0

/etc/mygate 

172.27.20.1

After these edits I shut down the system and installed the 3250 MB HDD in the Soekris. I put my original HDD back into my laptop, and connected a serial cable and null modem from the laptop to the Soekris. Before powering on the Soekris I connected to the serial console: 

# tip -19200 com1

connected

When I plugged in the Soekris power, I saw these messages: 

POST: 0123456789bcefghipajklnoq,,,tvwxy^[[2J

comBIOS ver. 1.24  20040312  

Copyright (C) 2000-2004 Soekris Engineering.



net4801

CPU Geode 266 Mhz 0128 Mbyte Memory

Pri Mas  IBM-DTCA-23240                 

 LBA Xlt 788-128-63  3177 Mbyte



PXE-M00: BootManage UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)



Slot   Vend Dev  ClassRev Cmd  Stat CL LT HT  Base1    Base2   Int 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

0:00:0 1078 0001 06000000 0107 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 00

0:06:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E101 A0000000 10

0:07:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E201 A0001000 10

0:08:0 100B 0020 02000000 0107 0290 00 3F 00 0000E301 A0002000 10

0:18:2 100B 0502 01018001 0005 0280 00 00 00 00000000 00000000 00

0:19:0 0E11 A0F8 0C031008 0117 0280 08 38 00 A0003000 00000000 11



   Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.

Using drive 0, partition 3.

Loading...

probing: pc0 com0 com1 pci mem[639K 127M a20=on]

disk: hd0+

> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT 2.06

switching console to com0

com0: changing speed to 19200 baud in 5 seconds, change your terminal to match

!

com0: 19200 baud

boot>

booting hd0a:/bsd:

entry point at 0x100120



[ using 404824 bytes of bsd ELF symbol table ]

Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993

The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 1995-2004 OpenBSD. All rights reserved.  http://www.OpenBSD.org

OpenBSD 3.5 (GENERIC) #34: Mon Mar 29 12:24:55 MST 2004

    deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC

cpu0: Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by National Semi ("Geode by NSC" 586-class) 267 MHz

cpu0: FPU,TSC,MSR,CX8,CMOV,MMX

cpu0: TSC disabled

real mem  = 133804032 (130668K)

avail mem = 117899264 (115136K)

using 1658 buffers containing 6791168 bytes (6632K) of memory

mainbus0 (root)

...truncated...

I now have a fully functional OpenBSD 3.5 system on the Soekris. That was fairly easy! Lots of sites describe how to install, augment, and use Soekris systems:

OpenBSD 3.5 on a Soekris Net4801
Netgate Soekris kits

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti...
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technica...
Read more