compat_freebsd(8)       OpenBSD System Manager's Manual      compat_freebsd(8)

NAME
     compat_freebsd - setup procedure for running FreeBSD binaries under emu-
     lation



DESCRIPTION
     OpenBSD supports running FreeBSD binaries. Most binaries should work, ex-
     cept programs that use FreeBSD-specific features. These include i386-spe-
     cific calls, such as syscons utilities, and audio devices.

     The FreeBSD compatibility feature is active for kernels compiled with the
     COMPAT_FREEBSD option enabled.

     A lot of programs are dynamically linked. This means, that you will also
     need the FreeBSD shared libraries that the program depends on, and the
     runtime linker. Also, you will need to create a "shadow root" directory
     for FreeBSD binaries on your OpenBSD system. This directory is named
     /emul/freebsd. Any file operations done by FreeBSD programs run under
     OpenBSD will look in this directory first. So, if a FreeBSD program
     opens, for example, /etc/passwd, OpenBSD will first try to open
     /emul/freebsd/etc/passwd, and if that does not exist open the 'real'
     /etc/passwd file. It is recommended that you install FreeBSD packages
     that include configuration files, etc under /emul/freebsd, to avoid nam-
     ing conflicts with possible OpenBSD counterparts. Shared libraries should
     also be installed in the shadow tree.

     Generally, you will need to look for the shared libraries that FreeBSD
     binaries depend on only the first few times that you install a FreeBSD
     program on your OpenBSD system. After a while, you will have a sufficient
     set of FreeBSD shared libraries on your system to be able to run newly
     imported FreeBSD binaries without any extra work.


   Setting up shared libraries
     How to get to know which shared libraries FreeBSD binaries need, and
     where to get them? Basically, there are 2 possibilities (when following
     these instructions: you will need to be root on your OpenBSD system to do
     the necessary installation steps).

     1.   You have access to a FreeBSD system. In this case you can temporari-
          ly install the binary there, see what shared libraries it needs, and
          copy them to your OpenBSD system. Example: you have just ftp-ed the
          FreeBSD binary of SimCity. Put it on the FreeBSD system you have ac-
          cess to, and check which shared libraries it needs by running `ldd
          sim':

                me@freebsd% ldd /usr/local/lib/SimCity/res/sim
                     /usr/local/lib/SimCity/res/sim:
                          -lXext.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6.0 (0x100c1000)
                          -lX11.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.0 (0x100c9000)
                          -lc.2 => /usr/lib/libc.so.2.1 (0x10144000)
                          -lm.2 => /usr/lib/libm.so.2.0 (0x101a7000)
                          -lgcc.261 => /usr/lib/libgcc.so.261.0 (0x101bf000)

          You would need go get all the files from the last column, and put
          them under /emul/freebsd. This means you eventually have these files
          on your OpenBSD system:

          /emul/freebsd/usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6.0
          /emul/freebsd/usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.0
          /emul/freebsd/usr/lib/libc.so.2.1
          /emul/freebsd/usr/lib/libm.so.2.0
          /emul/freebsd/usr/lib/libgcc.so.261.0


          Note that if you already have a FreeBSD shared library with a match-
          ing major revision number to the first column of the 'ldd' output,
          you won't need to copy the file named in the last column to your
          system, the one you already have should work. It is advisable to
          copy the shared library anyway if it is a newer version, though. You
          can remove the old one. So, if you have these libraries on your sys-
          tem:

          /emul/freebsd/usr/lib/libc.so.2.0

          and you find that the ldd output for a new binary you want to in-
          stall is:

               -lc.2 => /usr/lib/libc.so.2.1 (0x10144000)

          you won't need to worry about copying /usr/lib/libc.so.2.1 too, be-
          cause the program should work fine with the slightly older version.
          You can decide to replace the libc.so anyway, and that should leave
          you with:

          /emul/freebsd/usr/lib/libc.so.2.1

          Finally, you must make sure that you have the FreeBSD runtime linker
          and its config files on your system. You should copy these files
          from the FreeBSD system to their appropriate place on your OpenBSD
          system (in the /emul/freebsd tree):

          usr/libexec/ld.so
          var/run/ld.so.hints

     2.   You don't have access to a FreeBSD system. In that case, you should
          get the extra files you need from various ftp sites.  Information on
          where to look for the various files is appended below. For now,
          let's assume you know where to get the files.

          Retrieve the following files (from _one_ ftp site to avoid any ver-
          sion mismatches), and install them under /emul/freebsd (i.e. foo/bar
          is installed as /emul/freebsd/foo/bar):

          sbin/ldconfig
          usr/bin/ldd
          usr/lib/libc.so.x.y.z
          usr/libexec/ld.so

          ldconfig and ldd don't necessarily need to be under /emul/freebsd,
          you can install them elsewhere in the system too. Just make sure
          they don't conflict with their OpenBSD counterparts. A good idea
          would be to install them in /usr/local/bin as ldconfig-freebsd and
          ldd-freebsd.

          Run the FreeBSD ldconfig program with directory arguments in which
          the FreeBSD runtime linker should look for shared libs.  /usr/lib
          are standard, you could run like the following:

                me@openbsd% mkdir -p /emul/freebsd/var/run
                me@openbsd% touch /emul/freebsd/var/run/ld.so.hints
                me@openbsd% ldconfig-freebsd /usr/X11R6/lib /usr/local/lib

          Note that argument directories of ldconfig are mapped to
          /emul/freebsd/XXXX by OpenBSD's compat code, and should exist as
          such on your system.  Make sure /emul/freebsd/var/run/ld.so.hints is
          exist when you run FreeBSD's ldconfig, if not, you may lose OpenB-
          SD's /var/run/ld.so.hints.

          FreeBSD ldconfig should be statically linked, so it doesn't need any
          shared libraries by itself.  It will create the file /emul/freeb-
          sd/var/run/ld.so.hints.  You should rerun the FreeBSD version of the
          ldconfig program each time you add a new shared library.

          You should now be set up for FreeBSD binaries which only need a
          shared libc. You can test this by running the FreeBSD ldd on itself.
          Suppose that you have it installed as ldd-freebsd, it should produce
          something like:

                me@openbsd% ldd-freebsd `which ldd-freebsd`
                     /usr/local/bin/ldd-freebsd:
                          -lc.2 => /usr/lib/libc.so.2.1 (0x1001a000)

          This being done, you are ready to install new FreeBSD binaries.
          Whenever you install a new FreeBSD program, you should check if it
          needs shared libraries, and if so, whether you have them installed
          in the /emul/freebsd tree. To do this, you run the FreeBSD version
          ldd on the new program, and watch its output.  ldd (see also the
          manual page for ldd(1)) will print a list of shared libraries that
          the program depends on, in the form -l<majorname> => <fullname>.

          If it prints "not found" in stead of <fullname> it means that you
          need an extra library. Which library this is, is shown in <major-
          name>, which will be of the form XXXX.<N> You will need to find a
          libXXXX.so.<N>.<mm> on a FreeBSD ftp site, and install it on your
          system. The XXXX (name) and <N> (major revision number) should
          match; the minor number(s) <mm> are less important, though it is ad-
          vised to take the most recent version.


   Finding the necessary files.
     Note: the information below is valid as of the time this document was
     written (Jun, 1995), but certain details such as names of ftp sites, di-
     rectories and distribution names may have changed by the time you read
     this.

     FreeBSD distribution is available on a lot of ftp sites. Sometimes the
     files are unpacked, and you can get the individual files you need, but
     mostly they are stored in distribution sets, usually consisting of subdi-
     rectories with gzipped tar files in them. The primary ftp sites for the
     distributions are:

     ftp.freebsd.org:/pub/FreeBSD

     Mirror sites are described on:

     ftp.freebsd.org:/pub/FreeBSD/MIRROR.SITES

     This distribution consists of a number of tar-ed and gzipped files, Nor-
     mally, they're controlled by an install program, but you can retrieve
     files "by hand" too. The way to look something up is to retrieve all the
     files in the distribution, and ``tar ztvf'' through them for the file you
     need. Here is an example of a list of files that you might need.

           Needed                 Files

           ld.so                  2.0-RELEASE/bindist/bindist.??
           ldconfig               2.0-RELEASE/bindist/bindist.??
           ldd                    2.0-RELEASE/bindist/bindist.??
           libc.so.2              2.0-RELEASE/bindist/bindist.??
           libX11.so.6.0          2.0-RELEASE/XFree86-3.1/XFree86-3.1-bin.tar.gz
           libX11.so.6.0          XFree86-3.1.1/X311bin.tgz
           libXt.so.6.0           2.0-RELEASE/XFree86-3.1/XFree86-3.1-bin.tar.gz
           libXt.so.6.0           XFree86-3.1.1/X311bin.tgz


     The Files called ``bindist.??'' are tar-ed, gzipped and split, so you can
     extract contents by ``cat bindist.?? | tar zpxf -''.

     Extract the files from these gzipped tarfiles in your /emul/freebsd di-
     rectory (possibly omitting or afterwards removing files you don't need),
     and you are done.

BUGS
     The information about FreeBSD distributions may become outdated.

OpenBSD 2.3                      June 4, 1995                                4