Monday, March 20, 2023

32/64-Bit and NetBSD 10 BETA

I've had "Pentium" type machine for decades, starting with using NetBSD 0.9 on a 386 or 486 in 1997?, and now, trying out various processors and systems for beta testing 10.0.

Initially, one "hand-me-down" box seemed like an older, 32-bit processor, based on how MS-Windows viewed the details, complaining the OS version could not be updated beyond Windows 9 32 bit, or so. Thus my first pass with NetBSD was to install the i386 release, testing it for several weeks before the light dawned that this weak looking machine had more to offer if set up right. Motherboard has a 2014 date stamp and my research shows this board was designed for laptops then slipped into a largish case because marketing/.

Processor/kernel

[ 1.000000] NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Mon Jan 23 16:02:49 UTC 2023

[ 1.000000] mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC

[ 1.000000] NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Sun Feb 12 12:39:37 UTC 2023

[ 1.000000] mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/amd64/compile/GENERIC

/netbsd: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, for NetBSD 10.0, not stripped

[ 1.000004] cpu0: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

[ 1.000004] cpu0: node 0, package 0, core 0, smt 0

[ 1.000004] cpu0: SVM disabled by the BIOS

[ 1.000004] cpu1 at mainbus0 apid 1

[ 1.000004] cpu1: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

[ 1.000004] cpu1: node 0, package 0, core 1, smt 0

[ 1.000004] cpu2 at mainbus0 apid 2

[ 1.000004] cpu2: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

[ 1.000004] cpu2: node 0, package 0, core 2, smt 0

[ 1.000004] cpu3 at mainbus0 apid 3

[ 1.000004] cpu3: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

[ 1.000004] cpu3: node 0, package 0, core 3, smt 0

4-cores, N threads(?)

Two for the price of one

First win: the AMD64 beta ISO fits on a standard CD image footprint. Yay.

Next, big win: the machine has both VGA and DVI outputs, which may sound archaic with HDMI and higher resolutions available (more on the higher end AMD system later), but it turns out this little board contains 2 independent video outputs. With a couple adapters, I've got dual-HDMI screens and X Windows stretching in them.

Minor fault: the onboard ethernet adapter only runs at 100BT. On closer examination, there is an onboard mini-PCIE connector that could conceivably allow a Gigabit board in its place. Given the risk of breaking the installed board (which NetBSD works fine with), or installing a replacement board that might not work, I decided to go with an outboard USB ethernet dongle (more on that hardware also later).

Memory

Without changing the system (I guess there be BIOS mysteries here), going x86 kicked up the visible memory seen by NetBSD.

[ 1.000000] total memory = 2759 MB

[ 1.000000] avail memory = 2684 MB

[ 1.000000] total memory = 7863 MB

[ 1.000000] avail memory = 7581 MB

Also good news, there is an empty memory slot onboard. Now, to find chips that fit...

I wonder how old that CR2032 button battery is? Hmm.

Video

[ 4.877451] [drm] Radeon Display Connectors

[ 4.877451] [drm] Connector 0:

[ 4.877451] [drm] DVI-D-1

[ 4.888080] [drm] Connector 1:

[ 4.888080] [drm] VGA-1

[ 4.947445] radeondrmkmsfb0 at radeon0

[ 4.957450] [drm] Initialized radeon 2.50.0 20080528 for radeon0 on minor 0

[ 4.957450] radeondrmkmsfb0: framebuffer at 0xc0615000, size 1920x1080, depth 32, stride 7680

X Windows starts up just fine; the switch from twm to cwtm is still pleasant (one app installed twm and I quickly rewrote that xtartup script).

XSCreensaver works nicely; the range of hacks and their speed are always a system performance indicator, as well as hardware and software library depth. Two separate hacks running at the same time is pretty cool, maybe the first UNIX system I've had (and there have been many) bifurcating for me.

Oops:

$ file xscreensaver-get.core

xscreensaver-get.core: ELF 64-bit LSB core file, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), NetBSD-style, from 'xscreensaver-get', pid=18023, uid=1000, gid=100, nlwps=1, lwp=18023 (signal 11/code 32767)

Network

The "net" in NetBSD implies internet operations should be simple and thorough. I've installed this OS enough times to know where interface are configured, how Network Time Protocol works best, and basic home mesh set up. Good news for this motherboard containing a supported ethernet board.

I was unsatisfied with the restricted 100BT connection and tried several alternatives for wired and wireless.

For wifi, I have one USB dongle that NetBSD is happy with, and others that either don't work at all, or have partial connectivity. I switched out one that as been running fine on an even older i386 server and it's been fine (the big test will be running wireless only, rather than dual connections).

Think Penguin sells open source hardware. Linux OS targeted, but sometimes NetBSD uses benefit from that communal spirit. Not always, though. Short version (more below): the wireless dongle didn't work for me on NetBSD, but the gigabit USB dongle did.

Built-in:

[ 1.055110] re0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0: RealTek 8100E/8101E/8102E/8102EL PCIe 10/100BaseTX (rev. 0x07)

[ 1.055110] re0: interrupting at msix1 vec 0

[ 1.055110] re0: RTL8106E (0x4480)

There appear to be antenna wires connected to the PCIE board, though NetBSD doesn't report any interface other than the wired one.

Built-out:

[ 2.727276] rgephy0 at axen0 phy 3: RTL8211E 1000BASE-T media interface

[ 2.777269] rgephy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX, auto

Mar 8 21:32:16 amd64 /netbsd: [ 771903.1443413] athn0 at uhub1 port 2

Mar 8 21:32:17 amd64 /netbsd: [ 771904.1242585] : Atheros AR9271

Mar 8 21:32:17 amd64 /netbsd: [ 771904.1242585] athn0: rev 1 (1T1R), ROM rev 15, address

Mar 8 21:47:22 amd64 dhcpcd[4518]: re0: carrier lost - roaming

Mar 8 21:47:22 amd64 dhcpcd[4518]: axen0: changing route to ...

interface rates:

ping times:

Arrows are before the ThinkPenguin AXEN0 interface was connected

Performance

For beta testing, I like to install familiar software, run benchmarks, and look for anomalies. The first oddity was the CPU temperature increase after switching from an i386 NetBSD beta build to the amd64.

On the left side, i386 running under 27 degrees Celsius average, with the amd64 on the right closer to 38 degrees. Inexplicable so far.

Byte Bench

Dhrystone 2 using register variables 6703557.1 lps (10.0 secs, 10 samples)

Double-Precision Whetstone 1321.6 MWIPS (10.0 secs, 10 samples)

Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi 116108.7 lps (20.0 secs, 3 samples)

Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 6703557.1 574.4

Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 1321.6 240.3

H Bench (or its close rival lmbench)

lmbench1.1 results for NetBSD ...

...

Process fork+exit: 1002.1667 microseconds

Process fork+execve: 2887.0000 microseconds

Process fork+/bin/sh -c: 6732.0000 microseconds

$ cat /usr/pkg/share/hbench/Results/netbsd10.0-x86_64/amd64/lat_syscall_getpid

0.2494

0.2534

0.2522

0.2526

0.2546

0.2584

0.2549

0.2530

0.2502

0.2486

NetBSD Unit Tests

There are test suites under /usr/tests on recent NetBSD systems, which I was unaware of until recently, so running these tests are as much for me to learn about the system architecture as it is to find errors o omissions. In a prior post, I reported more failures on architectures for as ARM than on i386 or amd64, which makes a little sense given their relative code base ages.

Fortunately, I managed a complete test run while this system was running the NetBSD i386 build, and have finished another round using the amd64 build. Interesting results in that a few failures are mutual while most of the very small set are from only one build.

Line counts for the test runs:

12101 testsuite-amd64.csv

11957 testsuite-i386.csv

Common (shared) failure(s), as extracted from the CSV output (timestamps omitted for clarity):

tc, sbin/envstat/t_envstat, zerotemp, failed, Test case was expecting a failure but none were raised
tp, sbin/envstat/t_envstat, failed

Failures seen only on i386:

tp include/t_paths failed
tp kernel/kqueue/t_empty failed
tp lib/libarchive/t_libarchive failed
tp lib/libc/kevent_nullmnt/t_nullmnt failed
tp lib/librumphijack/t_tcpip failed
tp net/net/t_bind failed
tp net/net/t_unix failed
tp net/altq/t_cbq failed
tp crypto/opencrypto/t_opencrypto failed

Failures seen only on amd64:

tp lib/libc/net/t_servent failed
tp net/if_wg/t_basic failed
tp usr.bin/cc/t_tsan_data_race failed
tp usr.bin/make/t_make failed
tp usr.sbin/tcpdump/t_tcpdump failed
tp fs/tmpfs/t_vnode_leak failed

Apologies if this semi-manual error search missed any useful test results.

[ 1.055087] amdtemp0 at amdnb_misc0: AMD CPU Temperature Sensors (Family16h)

[ 1.055123] amdtemp0 at amdnb_misc0: AMD CPU Temperature Sensors (Family16h)

i386:

<so>amdtemp0 = 39.250 =~ 39</so>

<so>Skipping non-existent coretemp0</so>

<so>Skipping non-existent acpitz0</so>

<failed>Test case was expecting a failure but none were raised</failed>

amd64:

<so>amdtemp0 = 45.125 =~ 45</so>

<so>Skipping non-existent coretemp0</so>

<so>Skipping non-existent acpitz0</so>

<failed>Test case was expecting a failure but none were raised</failed>

I presume the root cause for this hardware might be similar to the other 686?

[ 1.000004] cpu0: AMD A8-6410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

$ /sbin/dmesg | /usr/bin/grep -i temp

[ 1.055087] amdtemp0 at amdnb_misc0: AMD CPU Temperature Sensors (Family16h)

[ 1.055123] amdtemp0 at amdnb_misc0: AMD CPU Temperature Sensors (Family16h)

$ /usr/sbin/envstat

Current CritMax WarnMax WarnMin CritMin Unit

[amdtemp0]

cpu0 temperature: 39.375 degC

On an AtomPC i386, envstat was fine:

tc, sbin/envstat/t_envstat, zerotemp, passed

<so>Skipping non-existent amdtemp0</so>

<so>coretemp0 = 58.000 =~ 58</so>

<so>acpitz0 = 127.000 =~ 127</so>

$ /sbin/dmesg | /usr/bin/grep -i temp

[ 1.010406] coretemp0 at cpu0: thermal sensor, 1 C resolution, Tjmax=100

$ /usr/sbin/envstat

Current CritMax WarnMax WarnMin CritMin Unit

[acpitz0]

temperature: 52.000 127.000 degC

[acpitz1]

temperature: 51.000 127.000 degC

[coretemp0]

cpu0 temperature: 53.000 degC

Think Penguin

Their wifi dongle has only worked on a small number of OSes I've tried, though I had hoped it would 'just work.' Part number: TPE-N150USB.

The gigabit dongles have been fine so far, and no losses on a temperamental Pi 02W. Though it has gone offline once (no dump). TPE-1000NET3

Mar 19 00:00:00 aa syslogd[974]: restart

Mar 19 12:31:31 aa syslogd[806]: restart

Mar 19 12:31:31 aa /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Fri Jan 13 19:15:32 UTC 2023

Mar 19 12:31:31 aa /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/GENERIC

Mar 19 12:31:31 aa /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] total memory = 448 MB

Mar 19 12:31:31 aa /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] avail memory = 422 MB

The Other 686

Alas, my idea to install NetBSD on a homebrew AMD board hasn't worked yet due to video card matching and budget. FreeBSD skirted the "bad" board by least common denominator rules which kicked in vanilla VGA X/console window to at least boot. I had 9.x running and decided for the time being not to keep swapping out hardware to have yet another NetBSD 10 beta testbed.

There are a few programs that I haven't got working to my satisfaction on the 6-core/12-thread machine, thus I'm using the NetBSD "laptop in a biggish box" as the main X display and putting databases or apps not needing video interaction on FreeBSD.

One program that really snaps with faster hardware is ocrmypdf; transactions that were taking a minute on an ARM processor kick over in 10 seconds now.

[ 1.000003] cpu0: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor

[ 1.005359] amdzentemp0 at amdsmn0: AMD CPU Temperature Sensors (Family19h)

[ 1.005359] amdzentemp0: autoconfiguration error: unable to register with sysmon (error=22)

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Zabbix migrations, in place / out of place

I've had Zabbix running on PostgreSQL for over a year now it seems, and during that time Zabbix has released a couple major updates, and I've tried to build the newest servers and agents I could on a variety of BSD and Linux flavors. My go-to platform, NetBSD, doesn't have the latest and greatest of every app out there, so I moved on to FreeBSD as the primary Zabbix home base, er at home.

I've had 2 levels of the Zabbix server on NetBSD, once on i386 and once on Arm but for this post I'll ignore those branches and focus on 2 FreeBSD directions for data and applications with the history ramifications.

When I started Zabbix 5 server was the best I could manage; as I tried other variations I had 6.2 up and running eventually. I figure out that exporting and importing history/trends from one Zabbix box to another is simple but time consuming as valuable data feeds increase.

Platform 1: Upgrade database in place; conform to schema changes

In early 2022, I started monitoring with Zabbix en masse, as they say.

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 20385599 Aug 8 2022 postgresql-11.17.tar.bz2

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 22132996 Aug 8 2022 postgresql-14.5.tar.bz2

While upgrading, I needed both versions 11 and 14; FreeBSD would not install one if the other was already. Hence, skipping the "make clean" part meant slightly quicker re-installs.

Installing zabbix62-server-6.2.3...

pkg-static: zabbix62-server-6.2.3 conflicts with zabbix54-server-5.4.9 (installs files into the same place).

===> zabbix62-frontend-php74-6.2.3 conflicts with installed package(s):

zabbix54-frontend-php74-5.4.9_1

===> Installing for zabbix62-server-6.2.3

===> Checking if zabbix62-server is already installed

===> zabbix62-server-6.2.3 is already installed

Installed packages to be REMOVED:

zabbix62-server: 6.2.3

Starting version (2022):

Jan 30 21:58:37 freebsd1 pkg-static[69272]: postgresql11-server-11.14 installed

Upgrade phases (2023):

Feb 20 15:46:38 freebsd1 pkg[11293]: postgresql11-server-11.17 deinstalled
Feb 20 16:59:17 freebsd1 pkg-static[65464]: postgresql11-server-11.17 installed
Feb 20 17:14:14 freebsd1 pkg[69391]: postgresql11-server-11.17 deinstalled
Feb 20 17:15:10 freebsd1 pkg-static[69814]: postgresql14-server-14.5 installed

The "deinstalls" probably include the pre-packaged server version that only supports mysql/mariadb.

FAIL:

Configuration file error

DB type "POSTGRESQL" is not supported by current setup. Possible values MYSQL.

PHP

Feb 3 23:17:58 freebsd1 pkg-static[89086]: php80-pgsql-8.0.15 installed

Feb 3 23:57:55 freebsd1 pkg-static[15828]: php80-pgsql-8.0.15 deinstalled

Feb 4 02:51:20 freebsd1 pkg-static[52566]: php74-pgsql-7.4.27 installed

This sequence shows the installed package mix failed to include PHP 8.0; this limit was something I searched for in early installs. Zabbix didn't work with PHP 8 on the systems I could muster.

Data changes

Along the way, Zabbix changed history table keys so newer versions may not deal with older versions if there is redundancy (as I understand it). So history needed to be dumped and reloaded, being renamed along the way so that there was a fall back. If it worked.

38636366 Jan 17 03:14 backup_zabbix_history_text.sql
302137397 Jan 17 03:15 backup_zabbix_history_uint.sql

174197724 Jan 17 03:16 backup_zabbix_trends.sql
101438770 Jan 17 03:16 backup_zabbix_trends_uint.sql

=> select count(*) from history_old;

count

---------

9281308

Platform 2: New database, import hosts and templates, manually import history.

Database Server versions

(2022)

May 12 15:13:26 freebsd2 pkg[11749]: postgresql14-server-14.5 installed

May 12 15:49:32 freebsd2 pkg[14127]: postgresql14-server-14.5 deinstalled

May 12 16:13:38 freebsd2 pkg[15371]: postgresql14-server-14.5 installed

My notes aren't clear on why 2 tries, but at least that's still correct on the Zabbix application server side. I moved the database in 2023 to a different system meaning no need to upgrade the original host unless I need to do a refresh there sometime (mmm, backups).

Feb 18 23:17:41 freebsd3 pkg-static[33301]: postgresql15-server-15.1_1 installed

Feb 18 23:26:00 freebsd3 pkg[42270]: postgresql15-server reinstalled: 15.1_1 -> 15.1_1

Feb 18 23:40:46 freebsd3 pkg[45979]: postgresql15-server-15.1_1 deinstalled

Feb 18 23:47:06 freebsd3 pkg-static[64934]: postgresql15-server-15.1_1 installed

I struggled a bit here with getting the package/port to include PostgreSQL. If I slipped, the make had to be re-done with particular incantations to forget my previous mistake. So I won't do it again, it's [ make rmconfig ].

Hammer time

20230220:143137.337 Unable to start Zabbix server due to unsupported PostgreSQL database version (11.17).

20230220:143137.337 Must be at least (13.0).

20230220:143137.337 Use of supported database version is highly recommended.

20230220:143137.337 Override by setting AllowUnsupportedDBVersions=1 in Zabbix server configuration file at your own risk.

=# INSERT INTO history SELECT * FROM history_old ON CONFLICT (itemid,clock,ns) DO NOTHING;

INSERT 0 9281304

[...]

COPY 1357

COPY 3828

COPY 0

COPY 18

COPY 1

COPY 9311373

COPY 5024

COPY 0

=> select count(*) from history;

count

---------

9311373

(1 row)

=> select count(*) from history_old;

count

---------

9281308

PHP

Here, unlike the legacy system, the PHP 8 version is working with Zabbix.

(2022)

May 12 15:50:41 freebsd2 pkg[14127]: php82-pgsql-8.2.0.r2 installed

May 12 16:12:16 freebsd2 pkg[15371]: php82-pgsql-8.2.0.r2 deinstalled

(2023)

Jan 10 20:20:05 freebsd2 pkg-static[50148]: php81-pgsql-8.1.14 installed

Data migration

To have a faster response time, I used system 3 as a database server, and installed PostgreSQL 15 over the previously running version 14.

Basic export import steps follow, along with dump size.

Shutdown Zabbix application server
Run a database export
Set up target system at least the same database version
Create database and schema as needed
Run database import
Shutdown original database
Alter Zabbix server configuration
Viola (ha)

2023-02-19 06:25:02.997 UTC [9256] FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command

-rw-r--r-- 1 postgres postgres 562198532 Feb 19 06:01 /dump/zabbix_freebsd2.dump

This is the wholly grail; if I miss this screen or fail to check the right box, it's not show time, it's dump and reload time.

From then to now:

-rw-r--r-- 1 freebsd freebsd 24382685 Dec 23 2021 zabbix-5.4.9.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 freebsd freebsd 24510838 Jan 31 2022 zabbix-5.4.10.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 freebsd freebsd 41038757 Dec 5 08:44 zabbix-6.2.6.tar.gz

Meanwhile 6.2.7 and 6.2.8 are probably out, on some platforms at least.

History results (from platform 1):

The gaps are due to sensors or test systems going offline or elsewhere.

Deltas

What did I find most different after trying the upgraded platform and the fresh platform? One obvious nicety is the delivery of open street maps in the base server. This only shows up for me in the fresh install, though.

Next big difference is the change from a single agent status level to seeing two of them, squeezed into one lamp.

Perhaps multiple interfaces may be configured to show here, though my first tries to add second adapters didn't pan out.

Option: HeartbeatFrequency is available on later agent versions, so check if this needs to be set (missing means an earlier configuration file).

This dash display works simply enough:

Groups and other metadata containers/tags have changed somewhat from the earliest versions I've used (5).

Which way for future upgrades? It depends, as usual. If the keys change, that's doable. Larger data collections are unlikely at my pace; for others trends would need to be analyzed. Avoiding "database unsupported" is always a good idea.

Ephemera

Along the way, I found this bug (hit it myself):

ZBX_NOTSUPPORTED: Cannot obtain a descriptor to access kernel virtual memory.

[ https://www.zabbix.com/forum/zabbix-help/429220-zbx_notsupported-cannot-obtain-a-descriptor-to-access-kernel-virtual-memory ]

Although the question refers to NetBSD 8 and Zabbix 4 (both outdated in 2023), the error may still hit if you use an older agent software base. NetBSD patches to get an agent the correct system internal metrics are out there, maybe on package source work-in-progress, and maybe in a distribution near you. I went through each system I test to get a Zabbix 6.2.6 agent running, so they'd match the server version and not have quirks with features absent or deformed.

The FreeBSD kernel limited the import speed, I presume.

Feb 20 17:40:48 freebsd1 kernel: Limiting open port RST response from 223 to 200 packets/sec

Feb 20 17:40:50 freebsd1 kernel: Limiting open port RST response from 224 to 200 packets/sec

Feb 20 17:41:24 freebsd1 kernel: Limiting open port RST response from 220 to 200 packets/sec

References:

https://jspath55.blogspot.com/2023/01/another-zabbix-chapter-software-upgrade.html

https://jspath55.blogspot.com/2022/06/zabbix-server-build-trial-and-error.html

https://jspath55.blogspot.com/2022/02/building-out-intra-home-data-aggregator.html

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

NetBSD 10 Beta installs and testing from i386 to ARM

I've run NetBSD for quite some time, going back to the days of Dr. Dobbs magazine and the release of the BSD4-based 386BSD (which I installed from floppy disks...). The chance of beta testing the newest release came at the end of December 2022. I had installed NetBSD-current on Raspberry Pi platforms, and also had different levels of NetBSD 9 on systems.

This story is on my attempts to upgrade or install fresh operating systems "in house". Rather than strict chronological order, the sections below are by CPU architecture, starting with the older i386 then going to Arm processors. I have not upgraded an AMD-based system (yet), and will add notes at the end when I can.

i386

I had a running 32-bit small system where I've had different releases of NetBSD over the years, starting with spinning disk and now with solid state. After going through more hurdles than I expected, that "Atom" powered machine is on 10-Beta and being tested ("h1"). Then I remembered a donated PC that would support NetBSD, although I either fumbled the boot tracks or the BIOS is just not BSD-friendly. That machine ("h2") got a fresh install from the ISO image.

H1 BEFORE:

Jan 1 20:16:19 h1 /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] NetBSD 9.3 (GENERIC) #0: Thu Aug 4 15:30:37 UTC 2022

H1 AFTER:

Jan 1 21:22:51 h1 /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Sat Dec 31 04:55:53 UTC 2022

NetBSD h1 10.0_BETA NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Sat Dec 31 04:55:53 UTC 2022 mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC i386

H2 AFTER:

Jan 29 16:08:18 h2 /netbsd: [ 1.0000000] NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Mon Jan 23 16:02:49 UTC 2023

NetBSD h2 10.0_BETA NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Mon Jan 23 16:02:49 UTC 2023 mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC i386

The first install took longer than I wanted because I first tried to use a CD-ROM disk for the install image, but unfortunately the standard distribution size has now grown pas 640MB for i386. Then I installed to a clean external drive via a USB adapter before managing to lay down the correct OS image and all of the parts.

One self-imposed problem was, using sysupgrade as a novice, making the fstab file empty or wrong. Fortunately, somehow got around this using the other boot drive to repair the goof.

$ ls -trl fst*

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 348 Jan 2 13:48 fstab-10-fail

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1100 Jan 2 14:05 fstab-10-almost

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 953 Jan 2 14:18 fstab

About 3 weeks elapsed between the first i386 kernel build to the second, so some slight changes have occurred it seems.

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 25611864 Dec 31 04:55 /netbsd

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 25611940 Jan 23 16:02 /netbsd

Typically the first package I'd install not in the base distribution is the bash shell, requiring steps to initiate a package source/executable tree. To get up-to-date, I refreshed pkgsrc via CVS on both; the first box has almost 2000 top-level distfile items and the second just 100 so far. For more complex packages with extensive dependencies I've ended up with pre-built packages generally. More below.

Entropy

Jan 11 18:03:44 h1 /netbsd: [ 176217.1118082] entropy: pid 19289 (python) blocking due to lack of entropy

Stuck on this for a while until I noticed the screen message. Repaired. Didn't happen on the second, newer, machine, with a quite different CPU (Intel Atom versus AMD A8).

Packages

The most glaring omissions below the first tier (64-bit) systems on NetBSD I've run into are web browsers, audio software, and the LibreOffice package. Thunderbird is another with a massive compile time is you do it yourself.

Zabbix 6.2 server and agents weren't there in pkgsrc and I've installed them from source across the NetBSD architectures I have. Most common hurdle has been the Perl regular expression library pcre which seems like it should have trivial build or run requirements (i.e. ldd works).

The net.c file needed to be pulled in from the pkgsrc "work in progress"

$ ls -l zabbix-6.2.6/src/libs/zbxsysinfo/netbsd/net.c*

-rw-r--r-- 1 me us 9245 Jan 27 00:57 zabbix-6.2.6/src/libs/zbxsysinfo/netbsd/net.c

-rw-r--r-- 1 me us 8129 Dec 1 07:47 zabbix-6.2.6/src/libs/zbxsysinfo/netbsd/net.c.orig

Alas, pkgsrc.se went away quite recently, so I cant backtrack to the source; maybe this will help:

https://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-wip-changes/2023/02/04/msg026289.html

"zabbix62-*: Update Zabbix to 6.2.7"

Oh, right, this:

https://wip.pkgsrc.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=pkgsrc-wip.git;a=tree;f=zabbix62-agent;hb=HEAD

lynx sometimes shows

SSL error:unable to get local issuer certificate-Continue? (n)

then works:

Linkname:LYNX - The Text Web-Browser URL:https://lynx.invisible-island.net/

Charset:us-ascii Server:Sucuri/Cloudproxy Date:Sat, 04 Feb 2023 14:37:40 GMT Last Mod:Wed, 03 Apr 2019 08:25:24 GMT

Firefox loads and runs.

Thunderbird doesn't like 32-bit on my attempts.

no such installed package thunderbird-78.12.0nb9

For fill-ins of lost regexp parts:

https://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=pkgconfig(libpcre)

Benchmarks

I should have run times from a lot of historic tests, except those under NDA (nondisclosure agreements) or other reasons. The BYTE benchmark is one of the oldest, and I probably ran "sieve" tests in the 1980s for C compilers.

The package source runs the older 4.x version (5.x is in the FreeBSD ports tree).

$ ls -l /var/bytebench/report

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3792 Jan 31 14:28 /var/bytebench/report

Dhrystones: 2,285,582 h1

4,820,219 h2

AMD:

64,565,735 (ryzen 6-core)

Old times, good times:

Dhrystones: 570,441 (pentium ~2005)

3,437,974 (pentium ~2005)

3,484,307 (pentium ~2007)

7,126,944 (opteron ~2007)

Benchmark Run: Sat Jun 26 2010 20:06:15 - 20:06:15

192 CPUs in system; running 192 parallel copies of tests

Even older:

-rwxr--r-- 1 377 wheel 63570 Mar 11 1997 DHRY1ND.EXE

-rwxr--r-- 1 377 wheel 59570 Mar 11 1997 DHRY1OD.EXE

-rwxr--r-- 1 377 wheel 67466 Mar 11 1997 DHRY2ND.EXE

-rwxr--r-- 1 377 wheel 67598 Mar 11 1997 DHRY2OD.EXE

hbench

I began collecting results from the hbench-os package because I've used it in the past and had rough ideas what values might be expected on high-end processors. Lower end modules like the Pi Zero 2W show degradation in the results.

I snagged on remote OS calls in the run sequence, and commented them out in a rough way.

$ cat /usr/pkg/share/hbench/Results/netbsdelf10.0-i386/h1.1/lat_syscall_sbrk

0.0259

0.0257

0.0275

I guess Byte bench should write to /usr/pkg instead of /var.

$ cat /usr/pkg/share/hbench/Results/netbsdelf10.0-i386/h2.1/lat_syscall_sbrk

0.0160

0.0157

0.0156

0.0148

0.0160

(the 9.x amd system shows):

$ cat /usr/pkg/share/hbench/Results/netbsd9.2-x86_64/amd.3/*sbrk

0.0024

test suite

For whatever reason I had not previously looked at the /usr/tests suite of system tests that have been included in NetBSD for far longer than I would have guessed. I can't find a lot of cross references so just dug into the docs and tried things out. Many tests failed when /usr/sbin or /sbin wasn't in the PATH, and a few others I have checked work if logged in as root. Though I don't have enough experience with this suite, getting values from all the systems I could access made sense in trying to help isolate either test or system faults.

i386

Failed test cases:

include/t_paths:paths, kernel/kqueue/t_empty:sock_tcp,

kernel/t_magic_symlinks:realpath,

spurious artifacts

[ 104957.413584] WARNING: pid 19263 (t_futex_robust) lwp 7568: exhausted robust futex limit

ARM

NetBSD a1 10.0_BETA NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Fri Jan 13 19:15:32 UTC 2023 mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/GENERIC evbarm

NetBSD a2 10.0_BETA NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC) #0: Fri Jan 13 19:15:32 UTC 2023 mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/GENERIC evbarm

NetBSD a3 10.0_BETA NetBSD 10.0_BETA (GENERIC64) #0: Fri Jan 13 19:15:32 UTC 2023 mkrepro@mkrepro.NetBSD.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/GENERIC64 evbarm

Like one of the i386 upgrades, I made errors using sysupgrade, with the worst problem being removal of necessary security files. When normal groups came up as "not found" I began to worry. With some backups, the majority of issues were fixed eventually. The workaround was again, mounting the flawed install elsewhere and updating the gaps.

One fix didn't catch immediately; setting the last touched time to "now" did the right thing.

(not supposed to be zero:)

-rw------- 1 root wheel 0 Jan 17 16:38

Clean install on a Pi Zero 2W

One oddity I found was date stamps on the upgrade sets. On the website the dates were nearly identical but the cached versions differ.

$ ls -l /var/cache/sysupgrade/

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 37548220 Jan 16 10:22 base.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 54971904 Jan 16 10:26 comp.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 447912 Dec 20 00:56 dtb.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 495604 Dec 23 00:04 etc.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2614024 Jan 16 10:20 games.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1103864 Jan 14 22:43 gpufw.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 7566312 Jan 16 10:21 man.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 4135072 Jan 16 10:20 misc.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6185508 Jan 16 10:20 modules.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 7852529 Jan 14 22:37 netbsd-GENERIC64.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2694436 Jan 16 10:20 rescue.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 10290016 Jan 16 10:20 tests.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1900648 Jan 16 10:20 text.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6021116 Dec 31 21:03 xbase.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6026656 Jan 14 22:44 xcomp.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 27840 Jan 4 15:11 xetc.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 28997008 Jan 16 10:21 xfont.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 21325496 Jan 16 10:21 xserver.tar.xz