alexkarle.com

plan9-journey.txt (9317B) [raw]

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 == Plan 9 Journal ==
 
 tags: plan9
 
 My journey in installing and using the 9front fork of plan9 on
 bare metal hardware (an old Thinkpad X220). Mostly just musings
 and intermittent problem solving. Mildly interesting at best.
 
 [Thu Mar 24 02:54:53 EDT 2022]
 
 This is my third time booting this system. Still can't get
 wifi to work. There's a message at boot about missing firmware.
 Something like /lib/firmware/iwn-6005 maybe? Need to check to
 see if theres proprietary blobs I'm missing...
 
 Writing in acme(1) of course. It's maybe the most familiar
 interface to the system (from my time poking around plan9port).
 
 Goals for tonight:
 
 - read intro(1) and linked pages
 
 My date is wrong by 4hr exactly. Wonder if there's an ntp equivalent?
 It's showing the UTC time as EDT, but when I run `date -u` it's got
 the wrong GMT... hm. Probably should set my timezone to UTC and see
 if that helps on reboot?
 
 ...
 
 Found $home/lib/profile. Realized $path doesn't exist. Just a series
 of bind mounts into /bin . Why not? One mechanism that works. Let the
 kernel search the union directory...
 
 ...
 
 Figured out my wireless issues -- I was right! I need firmware. Found
 the relevant portion in plan9.ini(8):
 
           iwl     Intel Wireless WiFi Link mini PCI-Express adapters
                   require firmware from
                   http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/*/iwn-firmware*.tgz
                   to be present on attach in /lib/firmware or /boot.
 
 Now just to figure out how to get the drivers on a thumbdrive... maybe
 it'd be easier to reboot with ethernet plugged in first.
 
 
 [Fri Mar 25 01:04:01 EDT 2022]
 
 I booted tonight with ethernet connected. Time still wrong. But we
 have webfs(4)!
 
 Things automagically worked--I was able to use mothra(1) to connect
 to 9front.org, so that felt great.
 
 The next logical step seemed to be to leave the system using ssh(1).
 First take failed. Maybe factotum(4) isn't running?
 
 Looking for answers here:
 
 	https://pspodcasting.net/dan/blog/2019/plan9_desktop.html
 
 Hm seems it should just work. Why do I get the following?
 
 	term% ssh <user>@sdf.org
 	ssh: read1: eof
 
 
 [Sat Mar 26 02:27:37 EDT 2022]
 
 Another day another boot. I put /etc/firmware/iwn* from my OpenBSD
 install on a USB and successfully got it to mount on 9front (not
 hard--just plug and check /shr)... but even with the firmware in
 /lib/firmware it didn't work! hmm maybe I'll copy to /boot too?
 
 At least the desktop guide above taught me about /dev/kmesg! I
 no longer have to remember what it said at boot time :)
 
 [Mon Apr 11 03:35:57 EDT 2022]
 
 Been a hot sec. Life got busy. Went on a company trip to Asheville,
 NC and then a bachelor party in Vegas. Caught a stomach bug and
 ended up spending most of the party in the hotel room. Still a story,
 I guess. Just not the one I expected to be telling.
 
 Anyways, I'm not quite sure where I left off. src/net.sh and src/res.sh
 both worked so I was up, fullscreen, and on wifi in about 3 min.
 
 Maybe I'll try to take a whack at ircrc(1) or email? Probably good to get
 SSH up too...
 
 end of night update: ircrc(1) worked great, no issues! ssh(1) still
 not working. I checked the server logs and it said "unable to negotiate,
 client offered: ssh-rsa", so I wonder if the client's cipher's are
 too old? The 9front fqa says that it supports chacha20-poly1305, which
 I think openssh should support on the server side... so why is the
 handshake failing? unclear.
 
 maybe I'll ask in #cat-v on IRC next time I boot :)
 
 Some other things I tried:
 
 1. Creating a SSH key (as documented in rsa(8)):
 
 	term% auth/rsagen -t 'service=ssh' >ssh.key
 	term% cat ssh.key >/mnt/factotum/ctl
 	term% ssh ajk@sdf.org
 	ssh: read1: eof
 
 That should have added it to factotum(4) for retrieval. hm.. I mean
 obviously the SSH server doesn't expect the key, but it shows that it's
 not like ssh(1) is keeling over because of lack of key (I don't think.).
 
 [Tue Apr 12 03:27:55 EDT 2022]
 
 I did it! At long last, a working ssh(1).
 
 I browsed the mailing list for a while and finally stumbled upon
 this patch [1] that linked to the fact that in 2021-09 openssh
 deprecated the ssh-rsa cipher (which from the sshd logs was what
 I was offering...).
 
 I'm not sure _why_ this patch didn't seem to make it into my install,
 but sure enough I was able to do a system update and rebuild from
 source and my new ssh(1) works out of the box! (I double checked and
 the patch is indeed applied). So the fix was:
 
 	term% sysupdate
 	term% cd /
 	term% . /sys/lib/rootstub
 	term% cd /sys/src
 	term% mk install
 
 As described in the fqa: http://fqa.9front.org/fqa5.html#5.1
 
 [1]: https://inbox.vuxu.org/9front/CD1ED7F51E72A0050786E39FADF6EBFE@felloff.net/
 
 
 [Thu Apr 14 02:46:06 EDT 2022]
 
 Tonight's goal: move this blog to the interwebs. Up until now
 it's lived on this thinkpad as /usr/glenda/notes.txt, but I
 (1) want to back it up and (2) want to share it in case it
 helps anyone else!
 
 Now that I have ssh(1) working, and given that 9front recently
 added git(1), it should be pretty trivial to publish to my
 gopherhole, just add it to the repo and commit and push!
 
 I had to first generate an ssh key as listed in rsa(8) and add
 it to factotum(4) so that I could clone via ssh:
 
   % auth/rsagen -t 'service=ssh role=client' > ssh.key
   % cat ssh.key >/mnt/factotum/ctl
   % auth/rsa2ssh ssh.key  # copy to clipboard, add to authorized_keys
   
 Then:
 
   % git/clone git@alexkarle.com:alexkarle.com akcom
   % cd akcom
   % mv /usr/glenda/notes.txt gopher/notes/all/plan9.txt
   % git/commit gopher/notes/all/plan9.txt
   <do the weird dance with 9term in blue hold mode>
   % git/push
 
 By the "weird dance" I mean:
 
   1. Type my commit message
   2. Type CTRL-D and newline
   3. Hit escape?
 
 Whacky.
 
 I couldn't get git/diff <sha> to show the diff, so instead I checked
 my diff with git/export HEAD, which worked great.
 
 Oh and I put my git config in $home/lib/git/config (name/email).
 
 The date is still 4hr off, so sourcehut rendered the commit as "3hr in
 the future" :) whoops!
 
 [Wed Apr 13 23:41:38 EDT 2022]
 
 Time travel! Look at me! haha I figured out my 4hr issue.
 Turns out my bios time was UTC but when I booted into 9front
 it thought it was EDT (since that's my locale). Now
 date -u and friends work as expected. I feel a bit silly
 for not checking sooner.
 
 Other known issues to sort out another night:
 
 * I have to execute the following (src/res.sh) each boot
   to get the right screen resolution--add to startup script?
   or /cfg/plan9.ini?
 
     @{rfork n; aux/realemu; aux/vga -m vesa -l 1366x768x16}
 
 * Battery doesn't show in stats(8) despite having apm0= and
   *acpi= in /cfg/plan9.ini
 
 * Suspend on laptop lid close doesn't work (should it?)
 
 * /lib/firmware isn't mounted at boot time -> no wifi drivers
   -> I have to run the following to join my network each time
   I boot (src/net.sh):
 
 	bind -a '#l1' /net
 	aux/wpa -p -2 -s <NetworkName> /net/ether1
 	ip/ipconfig ether /net/ether1
 
 I think if I'm serious about making use of this system (beyond
 the just poking around for fun / seeing how it feels), I'll need
 to pour over the fqa in detail, read more man pages, and maybe
 search around the community spaces. It's been a real fun "can you
 boot it" challenge, and I've already been inspired by some of
 the design philosophy, but I'm clearly very green at getting
 anything working.
 
 
 [Sat Apr 16 23:14:18 EDT 2022]
 
 Another night, another challenge. Let's try to figure out how
 to get my alexkarle.com site to build on 9front. This should
 be interesting because we have:
 
 1. A C markdown-like compiler (nihdoc) to port
 2. A makefile to port
 
 Hopefully it's a chance to learn both 6c(1) and mk(1)!
 
 Let's start with hello world in plan9-C, as discussed in
 "C Programming in Plan 9", from cat-v [1]
 
 #include <u.h>
 #include <libc.h>
 
 void
 main()
 {
 	print("hello, world\n");
 	exits("wat");
 }
 
 Compile and marvel at string exit messages:
 
 term% 6c hello.c
 term% 6l hello.6
 term% 6.out
 hello, world
 term% echo $status
 6.out 1480: wat
 
 Aaaand at this point in the night I'm realizing that porting
 anything substantial is gonna be a mess. So here's to just
 writing plaintext for gopher and git/push-ing that into the
 void! For now, at least.
 
 [1]: http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/programming/c_programming_in_plan_9
 
 
 [Mon Apr 18 22:57:23 EDT 2022]
 
 Guess who's back, back again.
 
 I wonder if there's a bit of inertia in plan9 just because I put
 it on my laptop and need to go pull out a screwdriver to swap
 back to OpenBSD. Definitely.
 
 Don't get me wrong, I like acme(1). I like the feel of the system.
 But... it ain't easy. And I can't do things I'm supposed to be
 doing in the evenings (catching up on email, etc).
 
 With that in mind... maybe I'll try to set up email tonight?
 
 I think it's OK to put a hold on the akcom building. No need to
 jump straight into C programming. Let's use the system more!
 
 First stop, the fqa! At this point, it'd be wise to download
 locally:
 
 	term% hget http://fqa.9front.org/dash1.survivalevasionandescape.pdf >fqa.pdf
 
 Ahh free from the browser again :)
 
 Yet again lost in the fqa and didn't make progress on my "goal".
 
 TODO:
 
 * Read mail(1)
 * Set up an email account I don't have data I'm afraid to lose
 * Read upasfs(4), reread fqa on mail
 
 Learned today:
 
 * The editor used by git(1) is hold(1) (5 lines of rc?!)
 * hostowner is "root" for processes, not files