Step-by-step instructions for installing OpenBSD 4.0 for Windows admins trying to do it for the first time. I’ve already had a lot of positive feedback on my support for OpenBSD in my recent column. About half the mail is from Windows users interested in trying OpenBSD for the first time. I’m thrilled more people want to try it. If you want to play with it for the first time, I suggest installing it on an availa Step-by-step instructions for installing OpenBSD 4.0 for Windows admins trying to do it for the first time.I’ve already had a lot of positive feedback on my support for OpenBSD in my recent column.About half the mail is from Windows users interested in trying OpenBSD for the first time. I’m thrilled more people want to try it. If you want to play with it for the first time, I suggest installing it on an available PC or using VMware (or one of the other suitable virtual host applications). If you use an available PC, make life easy and don’t try a dual boot scenario. It works, but it is probably more problematic than the entire rest of the install. I know dozens of friends who simply gave up trying to install BSD or Linux just because of the dual-boot questions and problems. Install it on an available PC or in a VM instead.There are dozens of ways to install OpenBSD. The following tasks will help you install OpenBSD on an i386-compatible computer for the first time, using one of the most common scenarios: 1. First you’ll need to download all of OpenBSD or a bootable OpenBSD installer. The latter is more common.2. You can download a bootable installer from www.openbsd.org or any of the mirror sites, or pay $50 for the complete CD-ROMs. 3. If you want to download it for free start at www.openbsd.org and click on the Getting Releases link.4. Select your download type (e.g. http, ftp, etc.) and select a download mirror site. 5. Navigate to the download directory of /pub/OpenBSD/4.06. Most people will want to install OpenBSD on an IBM/Intel/Windows-compatible computer. If so, choose the i386 folder (i.e. /pub/OpenBSD/4.0/i386)7. Now you can choose what type of OpenBSD file (or set) to download. 8. Choose and download cd40.iso. It is a cd-rom bootable image of OpenBSD. Burn it to a CD-ROM. If you don’t have burner software, download the excellent, and free, CDBurner XP Pro. 9. If you want to install OpenBSD in VMWare, start the VMware workstation wizard and choose Other as the guest OS type, and then choose FreeBSD. It’s close enough. Choose a 1-4GB partition, 256 MB of RAM, and the appropriate networking (e.g. bridged). You need to be connected to the Internet in order to download the complete OpenBSD software (called “sets”), so make sure your VMWare guest machine networking works.Start the VMWare guest install booting up on the OpenBSD burned install CD-ROM.10. Or if not using VMware, just boot up on the OpenBSD install CD-ROM.11. Eventually OpenBSD will ask you for what type of install, choose Install.12. Hit ENTER to choose the VT220 terminal type when prompted. 13. Hit ENTER to accept the default keybd mapping.14. Reply yes to proceed with the install.15. OpenBSD will detect your available hard drives. SCSI drives will be labeled something like sd0 or sd1. IDE drives will be labeled something like rwd0 or wd0. The r is for raw mode, the wd for IDE and the number for the number of the found drive.16. You will probably be installing OpenBSD on wd0. Say yes when prompted to install OpenBSD on all of wd0.17. Soon you should be in the OpenBSD disk partitioning program, called disklabel (although usually you won’t see that name anywhere).18. You should be at a > prompt.19. You can type in p and hit ENTER to list your partitions.20. Normally you’ll see an a and c partition.21. Type in d and hit ENTER to delete a partition. Type in a for the partition to delete. 22. Then type in a to add a partition. Just hit ENTER to accept the default offset value. This will be your main partition. Type in something like 1000M to make a 1GB main partition and hit ENTER. Accept the FS type of 4.2BSD. If asked for a mount point type in /.23. Type in a to add another partition. This will be the swap partition. Accept the defaults, except make a size equal to twice your RAM (e.g. 512M) and make the FS type swap.24. Type in q to quit the disklabel program and choose y to write new values.25. You will then be prompted to set host name and a bunch of standard networking parameters. To make life easy, choose dhcp if you have a dhcp server and take all the defaults.26. You’ll be prompted twice to enter in the root password. Do so and hit ENTER.27. Eventually, you’ll be asked to download the OpenBSD sets. These are the OpenBSD programs. To make life easy, just say all and hit ENTER.28. Then you’ll be prompted to give OpenBSD the download location. You can put in the same place as you download the install file from. If in doubt, try http for the first value and hit ENTER.29. Type in a proxy server name and IP information if needed.30. Type in the download site’s host name (e.g. mirrors.24-7-solutions.net) and hit ENTER. Don’t put in the http:// part here or else it will duplicate.31. When prompted for the host download location type in /pub/OpenBSD/4.0/i386 or something validly similar. Hitting ENTER should result in the sets downloading and installing.32. When finished, it will prompt you for more sets again, and you can say done this time and hit ENTER (don’t take the default).33. Say yes to start sshd(8) by default.34. You can choose whether or not to start the ntpd (network time protocol daemon).35. You can choose whether or not to start the X Windows system, but most Windows people like me do. It is required for most GUIs and required for some other non-GUI programs. The default is no.36. When prompted to change the default console to Com0, say no. 37. OpenBSD will then save the new settings.38. When prompted, put in the correct time zone (e.g.EST). You can type in ? to choose among various options. If you are going to run security devices, consider using UTC (universal coordinated time), so that logs you create can be discussed through multiple time zones. After hitting ENTER, OpenBSD will be ready to go.39. Type in reboot and hit ENTER. Restart and enjoy.Of course, don’t forget that Google is your best friend. www.openbsd.org has many great mailing lists and discussion groups. However, research and read all you can before you ask a question. They don’t suffer newbies lightly. If you’re new to Linux and/or OpenBSD buy one of the many books as a good, solid starting place. My favorite book is Absolute OpenBSD: Unix for the Practical Paranoid (by Michael W. Lucas from No Starch Press). 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