NetBSD: /etc/man.conf man search path does not work

Question

I've added a new man page directory

/usr/local/share/man/man1b

which contains files like e.g.

troff.1b

In /etc/man.conf I added

_subdir ...some names... man1b
_default /usr/{share,X11R7,X11R6,pkg,local,local/share}/man/
local /usr/local/share/man/
1b {cat,man}1b

man -p prints

...
/usr/local/share/man/man1b

But if I input

man 1b troff

I get the error message

man: no entry for troff in the manual.

(I can't use man troff since groff is installed too with a man page elsewhere in cat1.)

How can I add the man path correctly?

PS: If I rename the file to troff.1 then man 1b troff works. But I thought that the category can also be the file name extension. Could it be a bug of NetBSD (file name troff.1b works in OpenBSD and Linux)?

Answer 1

You may need to update your MANPATH environment variable, at least that is what I did in this situation.

$ export MANPATH=/usr/local/share/man/

From the man page (for man):

   MANPATH
          If MANPATH is set, man uses it as the path to search
          for manual page files.  It overrides the configuration
          file and the automatic search path, but is overridden by
          the -M invocation option. See SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES.