README for X11R6.8 on OpenBSD : Kernel Support for X
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7. Kernel Support for X

To make sure X support is enabled under OpenBSD, the following line must be in your config file in /sys/arch/i386/conf:

option APERTURE

7.1. Console drivers

The server supports wscons, the standard OpenBSD/i386 console driver.

The pcvt console driver which was the default up to OpenBSD 2.8, is also supported on those releases.

7.2. Aperture Driver

By default OpenBSD includes the BSD 4.4 kernel security feature that disables access to the /dev/mem device when in multi-user mode. But the X server requires linear access to the display memory in most cases.

OpenBSD requires the aperture driver to be enabled for all X servers, because the aperture driver also controls access to the I/O ports of the video boards.

To enable the aperture driver, once included in the kernel, set

machdep.allowaperture=2     
in /etc/sysctl.conf. See the xf86(4) manual page for details.

Another (less recommended) way to enable linear memory and I/O ports access is to disable the kernel security feature by initializing securelevel to -1 in /etc/rc.securelevel.

Caveat: the aperture driver only allows one access at a time (so that the system is in the same security state once X is launched). This means that if you run multiple servers on multiple virtual terminals, only the first one will have linear memory access. Set securelevel to -1 if you need more that one X server at a time.

7.3. MIT-SHM

OpenBSD supports System V shared memory. If X detects this support in your kernel, it will support the MIT-SHM extension.


README for X11R6.8 on OpenBSD : Kernel Support for X
Previous: Running X
Next: Rebuilding the X Distribution