OpenBSD post install Tips & Tricks :)

After the initial install of OpenBSD , its a good idea to get the latest ports and to point your PKG_PATH to a good mirror that has pre-compiled packages.

In my case, I point to : ftp5.usa.openbsd.org.
Another good trick is to save the names of all the packages into a file so that you can easily search for pre-compiled packages.

TO GET THE LATEST PORTS:

$shell> ftp ftp.openbsd.org
$shell> get pub/OpenBSD/4.2/port.tar.gz


Decompress the ports.tar.gz file to /usr

$shell> tar –zxvf ports.tar.gz

PLAYING WITH PACKAGES:

First thing to do is to get the names of all the packages into a file. This will help us in searching for a particular package:

$shell> ftp ftp.openbsd.orgcd /pub/OpenBSD/4.2/packages/i386
$shell> mdir *

GIVE THE FILENAME: packages.lst

Unless you specified a path , package.lst should be in your home directory.

Now point your PKG_PATH to a good fast mirror:

$shell> vi ~/.profile

add the following lines:

PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/packages/i386/
export PKG_PATH

Now since we have names of all the packages in a text file : packages.lst.
Whenever we want to look for package that is pre-compiled , just do :

$shell> grep package-name packages.lst

I get the name of the package if it exists and then i can just do:

$shell> pkg_add -v package-name


Simple trick eh??:)