Mailing for Help

If the mailing list archives, a web search, the OpenBSD FAQ, the OpenBSD website, man pages, and other assorted resources do not answer your question, you can ask for help. The OpenBSD mailing lists are read by a variety of very knowledgeable and skilled computer professionals. Many of these people enjoy working with OpenBSD and want to help new users. These same people have also frequently spent a great deal of time making OpenBSD information available on the Internet and even answering the same question dozens or hundreds of times.

Look at all the ways we just explored to get information on cryptographic hardware support in OpenBSD. Most topics have information readily available in the same manner. People who read the OpenBSD mailing lists, and answer questions on them, spent their time writing and distributing all that information. Documenting all this was a lot of work. Now imagine their reaction when they receive a piece of email asking about cryptographic hardware support. The people who write those emails have just confirmed that they want their hand held, or they're either unwilling or unable to read the available documentation, or they have the intelligence of a brick. The writer is obviously not ready to use OpenBSD. At best, he will be ignored. At worst, some experienced OpenBSD person who wrote all those docs would probably take offense at his hard work being so utterly discounted and flame the questioner badly enough that his monitor will need three months in the Mayo Clinic Burn Unit.

Keep that in mind before you send an email. Have you really checked everywhere? Are there any other words you can search under? Performing a few extra searches with different keywords is much faster than composing a useful piece of email and has a very good chance of returning an answer.

Discussion Topics

If you are familiar with another free UNIX, you might find OpenBSD's mailing lists a little shocking. OpenBSD users are advanced computer users, almost by definition. If an advanced UNIX user tries to debug a problem with a piece of software, he is generally expected to know enough to ask the responsible party. On support lists for other free UNIX-like operating systems, users are welcome to ask questions on dang near any topic about any piece of software that runs on their chosen platform. The people on these support lists do their best to help out. These support lists, manned by volunteers and dedicated to providing around-the-clock response to whatever question you might ask, are provided by projects that are interested in taking over the world. Remember, though, that isn't the OpenBSD Project's goal.

The OpenBSD folks will happily assist you with problems with OpenBSD, but software that happens to be running on OpenBSD is another matter. You may be able to get help from an OpenBSD list, if someone on that list happens to use the same software you're having trouble with, but you shouldn't count on it. If you're having trouble porting your preferred window manager to OpenBSD because of some differences in OpenBSD's libc, the OpenBSD people would love to talk to you. If you can't configure your window manager the way you'd like, then you need to talk to the people responsible for your window manager.

Contents of Help Requests

Before you send an email, think about the problem you are trying to solve. What question should you actually be asking here? Define the problem as narrowly as possible. Suppose you cannot connect to your Internet service provider. Is the problem that the internal modem dials, but the ISP rejects your connection requests? Does your modem not dial? Is it detected at all? Each of these is a very different problem, with a different solution. That's the problem you want to solve.

Now that you know what the problem is, you need to gather any and all the information related to the problem. You will include this information in your email. This should include:

• The version of OpenBSD you are running.

• Your hardware platform.

• Any error output. Be sure to check in /var/log/messages as well as your terminal.

• /var/run/dmesg.boot

• A complete, but narrow, problem description.

Formatting Help Requests

Quite a few OpenBSD users ^[2] use a text-based email reader such as mutt. (Quite a few also use graphic-friendly mail readers, mind you.) These are very powerful programs for handling large amounts of email, but they do not display HTML messages. If you are using a graphic mail client such as Microsoft Outlook, send your mail in plain text. What's more, be sure to wrap your text at 72 columns. Sending mail in HTML, or without decent line wrapping, is simply an invitation to have your email discarded unread.

This may seem harsh, but you need to consider to whom you're writing. Most email clients are simply not suited to handle thousands of messages a day, scattered across dozens of mailing lists and several dozen discussions, in a manner accessible to a human mind. Even the most popular Windows-based email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, cannot perform such fundamental tasks as discussion threading. I receive thousands of email messages a day, and many OpenBSD developers are in even worse straits. We simply cannot cope without competent mail tools, and HTML is not a necessary part of a competent mail tool. Presentation of a large number of messages in a sensible order is necessary.

On a similar note, most attachments are unnecessary. You do not need to PGP sign your email, and those business-card attachments just demonstrate that you really shouldn't be running OpenBSD. On a similar note, be sure to not use a long signature line. The "standard" for email signatures allows for four lines of text, no more. Long ASCII art signatures, even really nifty ones featuring the official OpenBSD Blowfish, are Right Out.

Also, do not send your message to multiple mailing lists. At this point, your messages should almost certainly go to <[e-mail]>. Most especially, do not cross-post between <[e-mail]> and <[e-mail]>!

Finally, use a good subject line. Many people who receive those thousands of email messages decide what messages to read based entirely on the subject line. Moderately advanced mail readers allow the reader to delete entire discussions based on subject line. Something like "Problem with OpenBSD" will be ignored by the vast majority of people. A subject line like "Internal modem not recognized at boot" will attract readers who are familiar with that sort of problem, and who are best able to help you. Some mail readers do even more sophisticated threading based upon the mail message headers; if you want to start a new discussion on a mailing list, it's best to compose the message from scratch rather than replying to an existing message.

Sending Your Email

Finally, put all of your information together and send your question with relevant documentation to <[e-mail]>. Yes, there are other mailing lists for discussing OpenBSD, but people who post questions or problems to them are almost overwhelmingly told to go ask on misc@ instead. You might be referred to another mailing list, but it's much better to post a message to a specific list if that message starts with "The people on misc@ recommended I ask this here."

It's easy to let frustration turn a simple request into a rampaging demand for immediate assistance. Remember to be polite; the people who are receiving your message may decide to help you out of the goodness of their hearts, but they are under no obligation to do so. If you want someone to be obliged to help you, get a support contract.

Also remember, the reason you're having a problem is because of something you do not understand. You're seeking enlightenment. If you ask someone to fix your problem for you, you're going to get a poor response.

Responding to Email

Your answer may be a brief note with a URL, or even just two words: "man such-and-such." If that's what you get, that's where you need to go. Don't go asking for more detail. If you have a question about the contents of the reference you're given, or if you're confused by the reference, treat that as another problem. Narrow down the source of your confusion and ask about it. Man pages and tutorials are not perfect, and it's possible that some parts seem to be mutually exclusive or contradictory if you don't fully comprehend them.

Finally, follow through. If you're asked for more information, provide it. If you don't know how to provide it, treat that as another problem. Go back to the beginning of this chapter and try to figure it out. The bottom line is, if you develop a reputation as someone who doesn't follow up on requests for more information, you won't even get a first reply.

Now that you know how to get more help on OpenBSD, let's proceed to the installation that's discussed in the next chapter.

^[2]In fact, quite a few users of other free UNIX-like operating systems use this sort of mail reader as well. This advice applies equally well to most parts of the free software community. Personally, when I get an email that is unreadable in plain text, I assume that the person who sent it is either ignorant or rude. Ignorant people have nothing to tell me, and I don't have time for rude people. If you are using a graphic mail client such as Microsoft Outlook, send your mail in plain text. What's more, be sure to wrap your text at 72 columns. Sending mail in HTML, or without decent line wrapping, is simply an invitation to have your email discarded unread.