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Old 16th April 2023
cabriofahrer cabriofahrer is offline
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Unhappy Commands like "ifconfig" do not work in X when using xdm

I do not know much about NetBSD, because I am a FreeBSD user. However I wanted to check out NetBSD because I was curious and here is something that I find very irritating: When logging in as a normal user through xdm (user and xdm have been created / activated with sysinst), when opening a terminal, commands like "ifconfig", shutdown -p now" or "pkgin istall" do not work, simply do not "exist", while when logging in without xdm being started as normal user in the console and then doing "startx", everything works.
So why is that?
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Old 16th April 2023
bsd-keith bsd-keith is offline
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As far as I'm aware, those are 'system' commands, & therefore need 'root' permissions to run.
I think you would need to be in the 'wheel' group, & use 'su' before you can issue them.
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Old 16th April 2023
cabriofahrer cabriofahrer is offline
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No, that is not the point. "ifconfig" does not need root permissions. And if you type a command that needs root permissions without "su", you will get a "Permission denied" message. But even when typing "su" (I am in the wheel group) and I get a # prompt, thhe commands do not work. When logging into account through xdm, they siply do not exist in the path.
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Old 16th April 2023
shep shep is offline
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I've noticed that some shell's have minimal defaults including exported paths:

A quick search confirms this possibility:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NetBSD/comm..._use_ifconfig/

You can quickly test with
Code:
# /sbin/ifconfig
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Old 17th April 2023
cabriofahrer cabriofahrer is offline
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Great, thanks! So this works:

"it's likely that /sbin is not in your shell's PATH. Try export PATH=/sbin:$PATH"

After doing the export, "ifconfig" works. So I think this is my problem:

"It's also possible if you created a user account with useradd without initializing the home directory from the skeleton files with -m".

As I said, I created the user with sysinst, which I guess invokes useradd. So the question now is: How can I "initialize the home directory from the skeleton files with -m"?
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Old 18th April 2023
shep shep is offline
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I'm not sure if the useradd -m flag would overwrite your existing /home directory. I think usermod(8) is what I'd try first.

What shell, of 3 possibilities (sh/csh/ksh), are you using?
The handbook indicates that ~/.profile will export the paths to all three shells. You could also copy the system configuration file for the particular shell you are using and then add the command to export the path for that particular shell.
https://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix3/upt/ch03_03.htm
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/misc/inde...adding-to-path

Last edited by shep; 18th April 2023 at 01:01 AM.
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Old 18th April 2023
cabriofahrer cabriofahrer is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shep View Post
What shell, of 3 possibilities (sh/csh/ksh), are you using?
I use sh. But it has something to do with using xdm or not. When I log in as a normal user in the console and then do a "startx", everything works.
I also tried something else: I installed slim and fluxbox and created an .xinitrc file containing only "/usr/pkg/bin/startfluxbox". So when starting slim and then logging in, fluxbox starts. In fluxbox then all commands work in xterm.
So I guess there is nothing wrong with my user account or my .profile.
It looks like xdm is somehow ignoring my .profile?
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Old 19th April 2023
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Do you have this in .Xdefaults?:
Code:
XTerm*loginShell:true
This setting forces xterm to read .profile and this is what usually sets the PATH.
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Old 21st April 2023
cabriofahrer cabriofahrer is offline
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No. I have just created a .Xdefaults file containing that line but it does not make a difference. Meanwhile I have also found this thread here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NetBSD/comm..._any_other_os/

But I do not quite understand what the answers are saying: That xdm does not "source" the .profile file and why should it do that anyway? Can someone please explain in more detail?
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Old 22nd April 2023
shep shep is offline
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I recall that the NetBSD /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc file references ~/.Xresources instead of ~/.Xdefaults.

My understanding is that ~/.Xdefaults can be ignored under certain circumstances.

https://superuser.com/questions/2439...-and-xdefaults

In my occasional forays into NetBSD, when using xdm, I have copied /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to ~/.Xresouces, edited it to start my window manager. You can also force the implementation of your ~/.Xresources or ~/.Xdefaults by running xrdb on the configuration file:
Code:
 $ xrdb ~/.Xresouces
.
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Old 13th November 2023
rufwoof rufwoof is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cabriofahrer View Post
I do not know much about NetBSD, because I am a FreeBSD user. However I wanted to check out NetBSD because I was curious and here is something that I find very irritating: When logging in as a normal user through xdm (user and xdm have been created / activated with sysinst), when opening a terminal, commands like "ifconfig", shutdown -p now" or "pkgin istall" do not work, simply do not "exist", while when logging in without xdm being started as normal user in the console and then doing "startx", everything works.
So why is that?
As 'user' su into root using
su -
instead of just su

You might also like to change to using ksh instead of just sh
chsh user
(for root you can run just chsh)
and edit the shell to ksh, that way you'll have tab completion and up arrow history
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