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RC.CONF(5) File Formats Manual RC.CONF(5)

rc.conf — system startup configuration file

The rc.conf file specifies which services are enabled during system startup by the startup scripts invoked by /etc/rc (see rc(8)), and the shutdown scripts invoked by /etc/rc.shutdown. The rc.conf file is a shell script that is sourced by rc(8), meaning that rc.conf must contain valid shell commands.

Listed below are the standard rc.conf variables that may be set, the values to which each may be set, a brief description of what each variable does, and a reference to relevant manual pages. Third party packages may test for additional variables.

By default, rc.conf reads /etc/defaults/rc.conf (if it is readable) to obtain default values for various variables, and the end-user may override these by appending appropriate entries to the end of rc.conf.

rc.d(8) scripts that use load_rc_config from rc.subr(8) also support sourcing an optional end-user provided per-script override file /etc/rc.conf.d/service, (where service is the contents of the variable in the rc.d(8) script). This may contain variable overrides, including allowing the end-user to override various run_rc_command rc.d(8) control variables, and thus changing the operation of the script without requiring editing of the script.

Most variables are one of two types: enabling variables or flags variables. Enabling variables, such as inetd, are generally named after the program or the system they enable, and have boolean values (specified using ‘YES’, ‘TRUE’, ‘ON’ or ‘1’ for true, and ‘NO’, ‘FALSE’, ‘OFF’ or ‘0’ for false, with the values being case insensitive). Flags variables, such as inetd_flags have the same name with “_flags” appended, and determine what arguments are passed to the program if it is enabled.

If a variable that rc(8) expects to be set is not set, or the value is not one of the allowed values, a warning will be printed.

Boolean value. If false, shutdown(8) will not run /etc/rc.shutdown.
A string. Extra arguments to the rcorder(8) run by /etc/rc.shutdown.
A number. If non-blank, use this as the number of seconds to run a watchdog timer for which will terminate /etc/rc.shutdown if the timer expires before the shutdown script completes.
Boolean value. If false then the system will drop into single-user mode during boot.
If set to a non-empty string, each script in /etc/rc.d will be executed in the current shell rather than a sub shell. This may be faster on slow machines that have an expensive fork(2) operation.
:
Use this at your own risk! A rogue command or script may inadvertently prevent boot to multiuser.
A string. Extra arguments to the rcorder(8) run by /etc/rc.
A string. Space separated list of directories searched for rc scripts. The default is /etc/rc.d. All directories in rc_directories must be located in the root file system, otherwise they will be silently skipped.
Boolean value. If true then the usual output is suppressed, and rc(8) invokes the command specified in the rc_silent_cmd variable once for each line of suppressed output. The default value of rc_silent is set from the AB_SILENT flag in the kernel's boothowto variable (see boot(8), reboot(2)).
A command to be executed once per line of suppressed output, when rc_silent is true. The default value of rc_silent_cmd is ‘twiddle’, which will display a spinning symbol instead of each line of output. Another useful value is ‘:’, which will display nothing at all.

A string. Default IPv4 network route. If empty or not set, then the contents of /etc/mygate (if it exists) are used.
A string. Default IPv6 network route. If empty or not set, then the contents of /etc/mygate6 (if it exists) are used.
A string. NIS (YP) domain of host. If empty or not set, then the contents of /etc/defaultdomain (if it exists) are used.
A space separated list of interface names. These interfaces will be configured down when going from multiuser to single-user mode or on system shutdown.
A string. Sets domain in /etc/resolv.conf.
A string. Sets search in /etc/resolv.conf.
A string of space separated domain name servers. Sets nameserver for each value in /etc/resolv.conf.
A string. Sets sortlist in /etc/resolv.conf.
A string. Sets options in /etc/resolv.conf.
An unsigned integer. Sets the priority of the above DNS to other sources, lowest wins. Defaults to 0.

This is important for some stateful interfaces, for example PPPoE interfaces which have no direct means of noticing “disconnect” events.

All active pppoe(4) interfaces will be automatically added to this list.

A string. Name of host. If empty or not set, then the contents of /etc/myname (if it exists) are used.

A string. File systems mounted very early in the system boot before networking services are available. Usually /var is part of this, because it is needed by services such as dhcpcd(8) which may be required to get the network operational. The default is ‘OPTIONAL:/var’, where the ‘OPTIONAL:’ prefix means that it's not an error if the file system is not present in fstab(5).
A string. File systems such as /usr that may require network services to be available to mount, that must be available early in the system boot for general services to use. The default is ‘OPTIONAL:/usr’, where the ‘OPTIONAL:’ prefix means that it is not an error if the file system is not present in fstab(5).
A string. A file system is checked with fsck(8) during boot before mounting it. This option may be used to override the default command-line options passed to the fsck(8) program.

When set to -y, fsck(8) assumes yes as the answer to all operator questions during file system checks. This might be important with hosts where the administrator does not have access to the console and an unsuccessful shutdown must not make the host unbootable even if the file system checks would fail in preen mode.

Boolean value. Should be true if you have deliberately configured your system with no swap. If false and no swap devices are configured, the system will warn you.
Boolean value. Set to true to have the system resize the root file system to fill its partition. Will only attempt to resize the root file system if it is of type ffs and does not have logging enabled. Defaults to false.
Boolean value. Remove block-type swap devices at shutdown time. Useful if swapping onto RAIDframe devices.
“auto” or “manual”. Before removing block-type swap devices, it is wise to unmount tmpfs filesystems to avoid having to swap their contents back into RAM. By default (“auto”) all tmpfs filesystems that contain no device nodes are unmounted. Set to “manual” to explicitly specify which filesystems to unmount before removing swap.
A space-separated list of absolute paths to tmpfs mount points. If swapoff_umount is set to “manual”, these tmpfs filesystems will be forcibly unmounted before removing block-type swap devices.
A path. If set, names a path that /var/shm will be symlinked to.

The path needs to live on a tmpfs file system. A typical value (assuming /tmp is mounted on tmpfs) would be /tmp/.shm.

Boolean value. Configures concatenated disk devices according to ccd.conf(5).
Boolean value. Configures cryptographic disk devices. Requires /etc/cgd/cgd.conf. See cgdconfig(8) for additional details.
Boolean value. Configures the logical volume manager. See lvm(8) for additional details.
Boolean value. Configures raid(4), RAIDframe disk devices. See raidctl(8) for additional details.

Boolean value. Enables process accounting with accton(8). Requires /var/account/acct to exist.
Boolean value. Clear /tmp after reboot.
Boolean value. Create /var/run/dmesg.boot from the output of dmesg(8). Passes .
Boolean value. Sets preferences for the environmental systems framework, envsys(4). Requires /etc/envsys.conf, which is described in envsys.conf(5).
Boolean value. Configure gpio(4) devices. See gpio.conf(5).
Boolean value. Configures a.out(5) runtime link editor directory cache.
Boolean value. Read mixerctl.conf(5) for how to set mixer values. List in the devices whose settings are to be saved at shutdown and restored at start-up.
Boolean value. Run newsyslog to trim log files before syslogd starts. Intended for laptop users. Passes .
Boolean value. Enables a per-user /tmp directory. can be used to override the default location of the “real” temporary directories, /private/tmp. See security(7) for additional details.
Boolean value. Checks and enables quotas by running quotacheck(8) and quotaon(8).
Boolean value. During boot-up, runs the rndctl(8) utility with the -L flag to seed the random number subsystem from an entropy file. During shutdown, runs the rndctl(8) utility with the -S flag to save some random information to the entropy file. The entropy file name is specified by the variable, and defaults to /var/db/entropy-file. The entropy file must be on a local file system that is writable early during boot-up (just after the file systems specified in critical_filesystems_local have been mounted), and correspondingly late during shutdown.
Boolean value. Runs the rndctl(8) utility one or more times according to the specification in rndctl_flags.

If rndctl_flags does not contain a semicolon (‘;’) then it is expected to contain zero or more flags, followed by one or more device or type names. The rndctl(8) command will be executed once for each device or type name. If the specified flags do not include any of -c, -C, -e, or -E, then the flags -c and -e are added, to specify that entropy from the relevant device or type should be both collected and estimated. If the specified flags do not include either of -d or -t, then the flag -d is added, to specify that the non-flag arguments are device names, not type names.

rndctl_flags may contain multiple semicolon-separated segments, in which each segment contains flags and device or type names as described above. This allows different flags to be associated with different device or type names. For example, given rndctl_flags="wd0 wd1; -t tty; -c -t net", the following commands will be executed: rndctl -c -e -d wd0; rndctl -c -e -d wd1; rndctl -c -e -t tty; rndctl -c -t net.

Boolean value. Sets the real time clock to local time by adjusting the sysctl(7) value of kern.rtc_offset. The offset from UTC is calculated automatically according to the time zone information in the file /etc/localtime.
Boolean value. Runs the savecore(8) utility. Passes . The directory where crash dumps are stored is specified by . The default setting is /var/crash.
Boolean value. Builds various system databases, including /var/run/dev.cdb, /etc/spwd.db, /var/db/netgroup.db, /var/db/services.cdb, and entries for utmp(5).
Boolean value. Run tpctl(8) to calibrate touch panel device. Passes .
Boolean value. Updates the NetBSD version string in the /etc/motd file to reflect the version of the running kernel. See motd(5).
Boolean value. If enabled in addition to update_motd, updates a second NetBSD version string in the /etc/motd file to reflect the version, architecture, and Build ID of the installed userland. An optional prefix can be provided for this version string in .
Boolean value. Send notification mail to users if any recoverable files exist in /var/tmp/vi.recover. Read virecover(8) for more information.
Boolean value. Configures watchdog timers. Passes . Refer to wdogctl(8) for information on how to configure a timer.

A number. The system securelevel is set to the specified value early in the boot process, before any external logins, or other programs that run users job, are started. If set to nothing, the default action is taken, as described in init(8) and secmodel_securelevel(9), which contains definitive information about the system securelevel. Note that setting securelevel to 0 in rc.conf will actually result in the system booting with securelevel set to 1, as init(8) will raise the level when rc(8) completes.
Boolean value. Allow passwords to include non-alpha characters, usually to allow NIS/YP netgroups.
Boolean value. Load Veriexec fingerprints during startup. Read veriexecctl(8) for more information.
A number. Controls the strict level of Veriexec. Level 0 is learning mode, used when building the signatures file. It will only output messages but will not enforce anything. Level 1 will only prevent access to files with a fingerprint mismatch. Level 2 will also deny writing to and removing of monitored files, as well as enforce access type (as specified in the signatures file). Level 3 will take a step further and prevent access to files that are not monitored.
A number. Controls the verbosity of Veriexec. Recommended operation is at level 0, verbose output (mostly used when building the signatures file) is at level 1. Level 2 is for debugging only and should not be used.
A string. Flags to pass to the veriexecctl command.
Boolean value. Disables SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading).

Boolean value. ALTQ configuration/monitoring daemon. Passes .
Boolean value. Sets the net_interfaces variable (see below) to the output of ifconfig(8) with the -l flag and suppresses warnings about interfaces in this list that do not have an ifconfig file or variable.
Boolean value. Runs blacklistd(8) to dynamically block hosts on a DoS according to configuration set in blacklistd.conf(5)
Boolean value. Set true to configure some or all network interfaces using dhcpcd. If you set dhcpcd true, then /var must be in critical_filesystems_local, or /var must be on the root file system. If you need to restrict dhcpcd to one or a number of interfaces, or need a separate configuration per interface, then this should be done in the configuration file - see dhcpcd.conf(5) for details. dhcpcd presently ignores the wpa_supplicant variable in rc.conf and will start wpa_supplicant if a suitable wpa_supplicant.conf is found unless otherwise instructed in dhcpcd.conf(5).
Passes dhcpcd_flags to dhcpcd. See dhcpcd(8) for complete documentation.
Boolean value. Flushes the route table on networking startup. Useful when coming up to multiuser mode after going down to single-user mode.
Boolean value. Runs ftp-proxy(8), the proxy daemon for the Internet File Transfer Protocol.
Boolean value. Runs hostapd(8), the authenticator for IEEE 802.11 networks.
A string. List of ‘’ pairs to configure additional network addresses for the given configured interface (e.g. ). If is ‘-’, then use the default netmask for the interface.

ifaliases_* covers limited cases only and is considered unrecommended. We recommend using ifconfig_xxN variables or /etc/ifconfig.xxN files with multiple lines instead.

Boolean value. Monitor dynamic interfaces and perform actions upon address changes. Passes .
Boolean value. Fine grain control of address and routing priorities.
A string. Can be:
‘auto’
automatically determine from system settings; will read priorities from /etc/ip6addrctl.conf or if that file does not exist it will default to IPv6 first, then IPv4.
‘ipv4_prefer’
try IPv4 before IPv6.
‘ipv6_prefer’
try IPv6 before IPv4.
Boolean value. If set, print the resulting prefixes and priorities map.
A string. An IPv6 node can be a router (nodes that forward packet for others) or a host (nodes that do not forward). A host can be autoconfigured based on the information advertised by adjacent IPv6 routers. By setting ip6mode to ‘router’, ‘host’, or ‘autohost’, you can configure your node as a router, a non-autoconfigured host, or an autoconfigured host. Invalid values will be ignored, and the node will be configured as a non-autoconfigured host.
Boolean value. If ip6mode is equal to ‘router’, and ip6uniquelocal is false, a reject route will be installed on boot to avoid misconfiguration relating to unique-local addresses. If ip6uniquelocal is true, the reject route won't be installed.
Boolean value. Runs ipf(8) to load in packet filter specifications from /etc/ipf.conf at network boot time, before any interfaces are configured. Passes . See ipf.conf(5).
Boolean value. Runs ipfs(8) to save and restore information for ipnat and ipfilter state tables. The information is stored in /var/db/ipf/ipstate.ipf and /var/db/ipf/ipnat.ipf. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs ipmon(8) to read ipf(8) packet log information and log it to a file or the system log. Passes ipmon_flags.
A string. Specifies arguments to supply to ipmon(8). Defaults to ‘-ns’. A typical example would be ‘-nD /var/log/ipflog’ to have ipmon(8) log directly to a file bypassing syslogd(8). If the -D argument is used, remember to modify /etc/newsyslog.conf accordingly; for example:

/var/log/ipflog 640 10 100 * Z /var/run/ipmon.pid
Boolean value. Runs ipnat(8) to load in the IP network address translation (NAT) rules from /etc/ipnat.conf at network boot time, before any interfaces are configured. See ipnat.conf(5).
Boolean value. Runs setkey(8) to load in IPsec manual keys and policies from /etc/ipsec.conf at network boot time, before any interfaces are configured.
Boolean value. Loads npf.conf(5) at network boot time, and starts npf(7).
Boolean value. Runs npfd(8), the NPF packet filter logging and state synchronization daemon.
A string. The list of network interfaces to be configured at boot time. For each interface "xxN", the system first looks for ifconfig parameters in the variable ifconfig_xxN, and then in the file /etc/ifconfig.xxN. If auto_ifconfig is false, and neither the variable nor the file is found, a warning is printed. Information in either the variable or the file is parsed identically, except that, if an ifconfig_xxN variable contains a single line with embedded semicolons, then the value is split into multiple lines prior to further parsing, treating the semicolon as a line separator.

One common case it to set the ifconfig_xxN variable to a set of arguments to be passed to an ifconfig(8) command after the interface name. Refer to ifconfig.if(5) for more details on /etc/ifconfig.xxN files, and note that the information there also applies to ifconfig_xxN variables (after the variables are split into lines).

Boolean value. Runs ntpdate(8) to set the system time from one of the hosts in ntpdate_hosts. If ntpdate_hosts is empty, it will attempt to find a list of hosts in /etc/ntp.conf. Passes .
Boolean value. Enable pf(4) at network boot time: Load the initial configuration pf.boot.conf(5) before the network is up. After the network has been configured, then load the final rule set pf.conf(5).
A string. The path of the pf.conf(5) rule set that will be used when loading the final rule set.
Boolean value. Run pflogd(8) for dumping packet filter logging information to a file.
A boolean. Toggles starting pppd(8) on startup. See ppp_peers below.
A string. If ppp is true and ppp_peers is not empty, then /etc/rc.d/ppp will check each word in ppp_peers for a corresponding ppp configuration file in /etc/ppp/peers and will call pppd(8) with the “call peer” option.
Boolean value. Runs racoon(8), the IKE (ISAKMP/Oakley) key management daemon.
Boolean value. Run wpa_supplicant(8), WPA/802.11i Supplicant for wireless network devices. If you set wpa_supplicant true, then /usr must be in critical_filesystems_local, or /usr must be on the root file system. dhcpcd ignores this variable, see the dhcpcd variable for details.

Boolean value. Runs the inetd(8) daemon to start network server processes (as listed in /etc/inetd.conf) as necessary. Passes inetd_flags. The -l flag turns on libwrap connection logging.
Boolean value. The rpcbind(8) daemon is required for any rpc(3) services. These include NFS, NIS, rpc.bootparamd(8), rpc.rstatd(8), rpc.rusersd(8), and rpc.rwalld(8). Passes .

Boolean value. Run cron(8).
Boolean value. Runs the ftpd(8) daemon and passes .
Boolean value. Runs the httpd(8) daemon and passes .
A string. The httpd(8) WWW root directory. Used only if httpd is true. The default setting is /var/www.
A string. If non-blank and httpd is true, run httpd(8) and cause it to switch to the specified user after initialization. It is preferred to because httpd(8) is requiring extra privileges to start listening on default port 80. The default setting is ‘_httpd’.
Boolean value. Runs lpd(8) and passes . The -l flag will turn on extra logging.
Boolean value. Runs mdnsd(8).
Boolean value. Runs named(8) and passes .
A string. If non-blank and named is true, run named(8) as the unprivileged user and group ‘named’, chroot(2)ed to named_chrootdir. ${named_chrootdir}/var/run/log will be added to the list of log sockets that syslogd(8) listens to.
Boolean value. Runs ntpd(8) and passes .
A string. If non-blank and ntpd is true, run ntpd(8) as the unprivileged user and group ‘ntpd’, chroot(2)ed to ntpd_chrootdir. ${ntpd_chrootdir}/var/run/log will be added to the list of log sockets that syslogd(8) listens to. This option requires that the kernel has
pseudo-device clockctl
compiled in, and that /dev/clockctl is present.
Boolean value. Starts postfix(1) mail system.
Boolean value. Runs sshd(8) and passes .
Boolean value. Runs syslogd(8) and passes .
Boolean value. Runs timed(8) and passes . The -M option allows timed(8) to be a master time source as well as a slave. If you are also running ntpd(8), only one machine running both should have the -M flag given to timed(8).

Boolean value. Runs mrouted(8), the DVMRP multicast routing protocol daemon. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs route6d(8), the RIPng routing protocol daemon for IPv6. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs routed(8), the RIP routing protocol daemon. Passes .

Boolean value. Runs bootparamd(8), the boot parameter server, with as options. Used to boot NetBSD and SunOS 4.x systems.
Boolean value. Runs dhcpd(8), the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) daemon, for assigning IP addresses to hosts and passing boot information. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs dhcrelay(8). Passes .
Boolean value. Runs mopd(8), the DEC MOP protocol daemon; used for booting VAX and other DEC machines. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs ndbootd(8), the Sun Network Disk (ND) Protocol server. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs rarpd(8), the reverse ARP daemon, often used to boot NetBSD and Sun workstations. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs rbootd(8), the HP boot protocol daemon; used for booting HP workstations. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs rtadvd(8), the IPv6 router advertisement daemon, which is used to advertise information about the subnet to IPv6 end hosts. Passes . This is only for IPv6 routers, so set ip6mode to ‘router’ if you use it.

Boolean value. Runs the xdm(1) X display manager. These X daemons are available only with the optional X distribution of NetBSD.
Boolean value. Runs the xfs(1) X11 font server, which supplies local X font files to X terminals.

Boolean value. Runs ypbind(8), which lets NIS (YP) clients use information from a NIS server. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs yppasswdd(8), which allows remote NIS users to update password on master server. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs ypserv(8), the NIS (YP) server for distributing information from certain files in /etc. Passes . The -d flag causes it to use DNS for lookups in /etc/hosts that fail.

Boolean value. Runs amd(8), the automounter daemon, which automatically mounts NFS file systems whenever a file or directory within that file system is accessed. Passes .
A string. The amd(8) mount directory. Used only if amd is true.
Boolean value. Runs rpc.lockd(8) if nfs_server and/or nfs_client are true. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs mountd(8) and passes .
Boolean value. The number of local NFS asynchronous I/O server is now controlled via sysctl(8).
Boolean value. Sets up a host to be a NFS server by running nfsd(8) and passing .
Boolean value. Runs rpc.statd(8), a status monitoring daemon used when rpc.lockd(8) is running, if nfs_server and/or nfs_client are true. Passes .

Boolean value. Configure Bluetooth support, comprising the following tasks:
  • attach serial Bluetooth controllers as listed in the /etc/bluetooth/btattach.conf configuration file.
  • enable Bluetooth controllers with useful defaults, plus additional options as detailed below.
  • optionally, start bthcid(8), the Bluetooth Link Key/PIN Code manager, passing .
  • configure local Bluetooth drivers as listed in the /etc/bluetooth/btdevctl.conf configuration file.
  • optionally, start sdpd(8), the Service Discovery server, passing .
A string. An optional list of Bluetooth controllers to configure.
A string. Additional configuration options for specific Bluetooth controllers.
A string. Additional configuration options for Bluetooth controllers without specific options as above.
Boolean value. If set to false, disable starting the Bluetooth Link Key/PIN Code manager.
Boolean value. If set to false, disable starting the Bluetooth Service Discovery server.

Boolean value. Runs identd(8), the daemon for the user identification protocol. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs the server for iSCSI requests, iscsi-target(8). Passes .
Boolean value. Runs the kdc(8) Kerberos v4 and v5 server. This should be run on Kerberos master and slave servers.
Boolean value. Runs rwhod(8) to support the rwho(1) and ruptime(1) commands.
Boolean value. If set to ‘YES’, start the automount(8) utility and the automountd(8) and autounmountd(8) daemons at boot time.
A string. If autofs is set to ‘YES’, these are the flags to pass to the automount(8) program. By default no flags are passed.
A string. If autofs is set to ‘YES’, these are the flags to pass to the automountd(8) daemon. By default no flags are passed.
A string. If autofs is set to ‘YES’, these are the flags to pass to the autounmountd(8) daemon. By default no flags are passed.

Boolean value. Runs apmd(8) and passes .
Boolean value. Runs irdaattach(8) and passes .
Boolean value. Runs moused(8), to pass serial mouse data to the wscons mouse mux. Passes .
Boolean value. Runs screenblank(1) and passes .
Boolean value. Configures the wscons(4) console driver, from the configuration file /etc/wscons.conf.
Boolean value. Runs wsmoused(8), to provide copy and paste text support in wscons displays. Passes .

/etc/rc.conf
The file rc.conf resides in /etc.
/etc/defaults/rc.conf
Default settings for rc.conf, sourced by rc.conf before the end-user configuration section.
/etc/rc.conf.d/foo
foo-specific rc.conf overrides.

boot(8), rc(8), rc.d(8), rc.subr(8), rcorder(8)

The rc.conf file appeared in NetBSD 1.3.

September 11, 2020 NetBSD-9.2