A Newbie's Gentoo FAQ

This document is a simple newbie's FAQ for Gentoo. Feel free to add new questions (and answers) here and change my answers if you feel that they are not accurate. After all, i'm just a newbie myself.

There is a more authoritative FAQ on www.gentoo.org.

Execute the following to add user newbie to your system

sudo useradd newbie
sudo passwd newbie
# enter a temporary password now
 
sudo passwd -e newbie  # this expires the password we just set, forcing the user to change their password the next time they logon. 
sudo passwd -f newbie # This step is optional. It allows you to enter the user's real name and other details

The Gentoo FAQ has this to say about adding new users.

To do this you will need to have root access.

You also need to have the sudo package installed. To do this, execute the following:

emerge app-admin/sudo

Now run:

visudo

This will open a special version of vi. To add user joebolggs to the sudoers add a line to the document like this:

joebloggs    ALL=(ALL) ALL

Now save and exit (by hitting Ctrl+o, then Ctrl+x)

Execute the following to update the system packages in your installation

sudo emerge system

Execute the following to update all packages in your installation

sudo emerge world

After emerging, there are often configuration conflicts. What this basically means is that emerge has discovered new configuration files that it wants to use to overwrite your existing files. The idea is that you should help to do this. The danger is that you could destroy your existing configuration files…

The warning from emerge should look like this (14 config files need updating in this example):

 * GNU info directory index is up-to-date.
 * IMPORTANT: 14 config files in /etc need updating.
 * Type emerge --help config to learn how to update config files.

Run the following to resolve this problem:

sudo etc-update

You will be given the option of choosing the old configuration file or the new one. Be very careful making this choice, you can do some serious damage here. You will be given choices as to whether to accept the original file, the new file, or merge the files manually. This is pretty hard for a newbie but you're going to have to get your feet wet some time.

Here's a piece of sample output:

Scanning Configuration files...
Automerging trivial changes in: /etc/security/pam_env.conf
The following is the list of files which need updating, each
configuration file is followed by a list of possible replacement files.
1) /etc/init.d/fcron (1)
2) /etc/fcron/fcron.conf (1)
3) /etc/ssmtp/revaliases (1)
4) /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf (1)
Please select a file to edit by entering the corresponding number.
              (don't use -3, -5, -7 or -9 if you're unsure what to do)
              (-1 to exit) (-3 to auto merge all remaining files)
                           (-5 to auto-merge AND not use 'mv -i')
                           (-7 to discard all updates)
                           (-9 to discard all updates AND not use 'rm -i'):

The Gentoo Wiki has this to say about resolving conflicts.

In your logwatch logs, if /favicon.ico could not be found by the webserver, a message like this might appear:

 --------------------- httpd Begin ------------------------ 

 4.16 MB transferred in 702 responses  (1xx 0, 2xx 302, 3xx 389, 4xx 11, 5xx 0) 
    367 Images (0.06 MB),
    298 Content pages (3.78 MB),
     10 Redirects (0.00 MB),
     27 Other (0.31 MB) 
 
 Requests with error response codes
    404 Not Found
       /favicon.ico: 7 Time(s)

 ---------------------- httpd End ------------------------- 

Many modern browsers look for the file /favicon.ico when browsing your webpage (to display an icon at the left of your address bar or in your bookmarks). If this file does not exist you should create it, either with an actual .ico file or with a blank.

To create a blank favicon.ico file, execute the following:

touch /var/www/localhost/htdocs/favicon.ico

This warning should no longer appear. However, with this solution, there will be no icon displayed by the browser. To display an icon, follow these instructions.

When logging into a remote host with ssh for the first time, you may be asked to verify an RSA key with a warning such as this:

The authenticity of host '<HOST NAME> (<IP ADDRESS>)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN:NN.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

In order to verify that this key signature is correct you may check on the server by running the following command:

ssh-keygen -l -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub

There is a more detailed set of instructions here.

To remove files starting with '-', e.g., -h

rm -- -h

To remove a directory starting with a hyphen (-), e.g., -h/

rm -r -- -h/