I am experimenting with creating tiny systems and I have created a system which boots the kernel and starts in single user mode. This system has /dev populated, along with /sbin/init and /bin/sh.

I would like to take the next step and produce a minimal NetBSD system with a login prompt. I did some searching and found a post that was trying to accomplish this very task. However, when I tried it it did not work.

I followed this advice from the following email
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-help/1999/10/30/0004.html

>  Hmm... I think you could get by with (see the man pages for each):
>1) a kernel
>2) /sbin/init
>3) /etc/ttys
>4) /usr/libexec/getty
>5) /usr/bin/login
>6) /etc/master.passwd, /etc/pwd.db, /etc/spwd.db, /etc/passwd
>7) /usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb && /usr/bin/passwd (only to change passwords)
>8) whatever you want to happen when they login :)

When the system boots it still goes straight to the prompt with no login. Also, when calling passwd from the prompt, I get the following error message...

passwd: The file is still busy, try again later.

I'm currently guessing that I need some of the /etc/rc structure to do this. But this is just a guess. I would appreciate any light that you have to offer.

--
Brian Rose