Chris Cappuccio chris@nmedia.net

NSH is a CLI intended for OpenBSD-based network appliances. It replaces ifconfig, sysctl and route with its own simple command language, and encapsulates configuration for other daemons into one place, effectively replacing /etc/netstart and parts of /etc/rc for appliance-style usage.

bgpd, dhcpd, dhcpleased, dhcrelay, dvmrpd, eigrpd, ftp-proxy, ifstated, inetd, iked, ipsecctl, ldapd, ldpd, npppd, ntpd, ospfd, ospf6d, pf, rad, relayd, resolvd, ripd, sasyncd, slaacd, smtpd, snmpd, sshd, tftpd, tftp-proxy.

NSH is freely licensed, in the BSD style.

In conjunction with the OpenBSD kernel and the daemons you wish to control, you have a fully functioning network appliance type of system.

See https://github.com/yellowman/nsh/wiki/NSH-Manual-page or nsh.8 manual for detailed installation instructions and command set.

See the to-do list on https://github.com/users/yellowman/projects/1 for details on implementation status and future ideas.

See http://github.com/yellowman/nsh/ for current source code repository. See http://www.nmedia.net/nsh/ for example configurations and mailing list.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMKxIHaWaG0 for an EurobsdCon 2022 Presentation on NSH for network administrators.

1. Install OpenBSD on your system

2. Install the OpenBSD port of nsh on your system -(this will install the latest nsh release version)

pkg_add nsh  

3. Install git on your system to allow fetching more recent versions of nsh from github

pkg_add git

4. to download the latest development of nsh use git to download the latest nsh repository

git clone https://github.com/yellowman/nsh

5. change directory to the downloaded nsh directory

cd nsh

6. to build the nsh sources follow the steps below

6a. make objects

make obj

6b. make / compile the sources

make

6c. Install the compiled nsh binaries and supporting files (you will need root privileges to do this).

make install

7. To have nsh take over the configuration of a system a number of steps that need to be carried out such as

7a. Backup configuration of system, daemons and network in /etc

7b. Copy the configuration files to /var/run/example-configfilename.0 (the .0 file extension) implies running in the default rdomain / rtable (rdomain 0)

7c. save the running config to /etc/nshrc

7d. secure the /etc/nshrc file so that world cannot read, write or execute it .

7e. configure the system to run nsh -i /etc/nshrc either adding a line to /etc/rc.local or using an rccctl script for nsh.

For the users convenience, the above steps can be largely automated by running the rc.local-nsh-openbsd-integration.sh script and following on screen instructions.

cd scripts/
./rc.local-nsh-openbsd-integration.sh

8. once configuration has been imported, restart the system and verify nsh config is running as expected

9. please provide feedback , bug repots and suggestions to the developers on our mailing list nsh@lists.deschutesdigital.com .