NetBSD on our VDS platform

One of our braver customers who wishes to remain anonymous has been trying out NetBSD on our KVM based virtual server platform. This is unsupported but he’s written us the following advice that any future customers might appreciate.

Firstly, the default network device is not going to work under 
NetBSD, so running

    netdev rtl8139

before installing is needed. Because of the default realtek 
driver in NetBSD, the install will be a bit choppy - 
recommended pulling packages from CD instead of network.

After that recompiling the kernel is needed, with 2 
modifications.

I've based my config on GENERIC, so simply copying the 
GENERIC config file and commenting out the re* driver. 
This will make the kernel use the older rtk driver, which 
will work. Mind that /etc/ifconfig.re0 will need to be 
copied to /etc/ifconfig.rtk0 to make sure it comes up with
network enabled after boot. Just find the line starting with 
re* and comment it out.

Before recompiling, edit /usr/src/sys/netinet/if_arp.c and 
lookup the line matching "arp info overwritten". Simply 
delete the line (3 lines in total ending ";") as having this 
 being logged is a nuisance as your router IP keeps changing 
between interfaces (so arp table is constantly updating).

NetBSD isn’t an officially supported distribution as we have minimal direct experience with it, but if you’re happy to support yourself we hope this helps you get set up.