Strange behavior of OpenBSD VM's created by Hyper-V Manager

[gordon.f]

Dear OpenBSD users,

For your information, I've detected some strange behavior while using OpenBSD VM's that have been created by Microsoft's Hyper-V Manager. In both installations I used Install, instead of Auto-Install.

1-Installed i386 OpenBSD 7.2 and there are missing files specifically in /etc like boot.conf, rc.conf.local.
2-Installed amd64 OpenBSD 7.2 and the result is same like above. There are missing files.
3-i386 couldn't detect the hvn0 interface but amd64 one did.

Best Regards.

[jggimi]

1 and 2: these two configuration files are not created during install unless the admin answers an install script question causing them to be provisioned, such as using a serial console or disabling xenodm(1).

3: OpenBSD/i386 does not support the hvn(4) driver -- it is not included with the i386 GENERIC kernel.

[gordon.f]

Dear jggimi,

Thanks for the reply. The situation at #3 is well noted.
For #1 and #2, I chose I don't want to use X window system and I don't want to use com0 as default. Is this behavior(absence of files) related to those answers?

[jggimi]

Let's look at the 7.2 install script:

# Apply configuration settings based on the previously gathered information.
apply() {
    if [[ $START_SSHD == n ]]; then
        echo "sshd_flags=NO" >>/mnt/etc/rc.conf.local
    elif [[ -n $SSHD_ENABLEROOT ]]; then
        # Only change sshd_config if the user choice is not the default.
        if ! grep -q "^#PermitRootLogin $SSHD_ENABLEROOT\$" \
                /mnt/etc/ssh/sshd_config; then
            sed -i "s/^#\(PermitRootLogin\) .*/\1 $SSHD_ENABLEROOT/" \
                /mnt/etc/ssh/sshd_config
        fi
    fi

    [[ -n $APERTURE ]] &&
        echo "machdep.allowaperture=$APERTURE # See xf86(4)" \
            >>/mnt/etc/sysctl.conf

    [[ $START_XDM == y && -x /mnt/usr/X11R6/bin/xenodm ]] &&
        echo "xenodm_flags=" >>/mnt/etc/rc.conf.local

    if [[ $DEFCONS == y ]]; then
        cp /mnt/etc/ttys /tmp/i/ttys
        sed    -e "/^console/s/on  secure/off secure/" \
            -e "/^$CTTY/s/std.9600/std.${CSPEED}/" \
            -e "/^$CTTY/s/std.115200/std.${CSPEED}/" \
            -e "/^$CTTY/s/unknown/vt220    /" \
            -e "/$CTTY/s/off.*/on secure/" /tmp/i/ttys >/mnt/etc/ttys
        [[ -n $CPROM ]] &&
            echo "stty $CPROM $CSPEED\nset tty $CPROM" \
                >>/mnt/etc/boot.conf
    fi

    ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /mnt/etc/localtime
}

[gordon.f]

Dear jggimi;

It says

# Apply configuration settings based on the previously gathered information.

So I checked the previous pages of the link you've provided and there is a section related to $START_XDM variable. See below.

START_XDM=
	if [[ -n $(scan_dmesg '/^wsdisplay[0-9]* /s/ .*//p') ]]; then
		if [[ -n $(scan_dmesg '/^[a-z]*[01]: aperture needed/p') ]]; then
			ask_yn "Do you expect to run the X Window System?" yes &&
				APERTURE=$MDXAPERTURE
		fi
		if [[ -n $MDXDM && $resp != n ]]; then
			ask_yn "Do you want the X Window System to be started by xenodm(1)?"
			START_XDM=$resp
		fi
	fi

So I chose 'n' and just because of this code below

[[ $START_XDM == y && -x /mnt/usr/X11R6/bin/xenodm ]] &&
		echo "xenodm_flags=" >>/mnt/etc/rc.conf.local

I didn't get an rc.conf.local file. $START_XDM has to be equal to 'y', hasn't it?

What a script!

[jggimi]

The defaults for rc.conf variables are stored in /etc/rc.conf, where you will see the default for xenodm_flags=NO.