Fixed the problem. Thanks all.

> > I just followed the instructions on www.ipfilter.org for upgrading
ipfilter
> > with NetBSD. This may be the wrong list, but for the sake completion,
how
> > would I statically link them instead?
>
> Ahh. The standard NetBSD build system sets "LDSTATIC=-static" in the
> "Makefile", but you would probably do better to set "LDFLAGS=-static" in
> your environment before building "ipf".
>
> NetBSD does that just so "ipf" can be run before "/usr" is mounted,
> in case "/usr" is a network file system. No doubt you have a separate
> "/usr", and that explains why it only works in multi-user mode.
>
> > > > 'file /sbin/ipf' reports
> > > >
> > > > /sbin/ipf: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1,
> > dynamically
> > > > linked (uses shared libs), stripped
> > >           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > >           ||||||||||||||||
> > >
> > > How did that happen? Everything in /sbin is supposed to be staticly
> > > linked?
> > >
> > > > > > /sbin/ipf: 1: syntax error: "(" unexpected
> > > > > > /sbin/ipf: 1: syntax error: "(" unexpected
> > > > > >
> > > > > > when I run
> > > > > >
> > > > > > /etc/rc.d/ipfilter start
> > > > > >
> > > > > > from the command line, it works just fine.