xref: /src/distrib/notes/alpha/install

0. Introduction

    This is the first release of NetBSD/alpha with regular packaging
    and install tools, and the installation program is still rather
    primitive. It also hasn't been tested very well, so there may
    be bugs in both it and this document. However, if you have
    problems, don't despair; most problems you might encounter are
    very easy to fix. We strongly suggest you join the port-alpha
    list (see the section on mailing lists on www.netbsd.org) and
    ask questions there if you run into any problems. Also report
    problem you've gotten around there or by using send-pr so that
    they can be fixed for the next release.
        
1. General

    The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take
    while getting NetBSD installed on your hard disk. It's divided
    into three basic components: booting NetBSD (section 2 below),
    preparing the disk (section 3 below), and loading the operating
    system files onto the disk (section 4 below).

2. Booting NetBSD

    You have two choices of how to boot your machine. If you have a
    floppy drive, you may boot from that. This is probably the simplest
    way of getting started. If you don't have a floppy drive, you will
    need to set yourself up for a boot from a file server on the
    network, which is a little more complex.

2.1 Making and Booting a Floppy

    The 3.5", 1.44 MB boot floppy image is found under the
    NetBSD/alpha _VER distribution directory in the file
    alpha/installation/floppy/floppy-144. You need to take this disk
    image and put it on a floppy disk.

    If you have a Unix system handy, you can do this with a command
    like the following:

        dd if=floppy-144 of=/dev/rfd0a

    If the Unix system you are using is not a NetBSD system, you will
    probably need to replace `/dev/rfd0a' with the name of the floppy
    device on your particular system.

    If you have an MS-DOS or Windows system available, you can use
    the `rawrite.exe' utility to transfer the image to a floppy
    disk. (Note that rawrite.exe doesn't work under many, if not
    all, Windows NT systems.) This utility is provided with the
    NetBSD/i386 install tools, under i386/installation/misc; a
    documentation file, `rawrite.doc' is available there as well.

    Once the floppy has been made, you simply need to put it in the
    drive and type

        boot dva0

    Now you may skip to section 3.

2.2 Booting over the Network

    Booting NetBSD/alpha _VER over a network requires a BOOTP server,
    a TFTP server and an NFS server. (These are usually all run on
    the same machine.) There are three basic stages to the boot:

    1.The Alpha console software sends a BOOTP request to get its own
    address, the address of the TFTP server and the file to
    download. It downloads this file, which is the second stage
    bootstrap, via TFTP and then executes it.

    2.The second stage bootstrap uses further information in the BOOTP
    packet that the console received to find the NFS server and path
    and retreive the kernel (the file /netbsd). After loading the
    kernel into memory, it executes it.

    3.The kernel probes and configures the devices, and then sends
    out another BOOTP request so it can find out its address, the NFS
    server, and path. (The kernel probably should get this information
    from the console, but it currently doesn't.) It then mounts its
    root via NFS and continues.

2.2.1 Setting Up the Server

    You will need to set up your server to serve BOOTP, TFTP and NFS. 

    The NFS setup is quite simple. If you want to run a full system
    from the network, untar the NetBSD snapshot or distribution
    into a directory on your server and NFS export that directory
    to the client. (Make sure you put a kernel there as well, and
    create the device nodes in /dev with `sh ./MAKEDEV all'. In
    fact, see the full instructions available off the alpha port
    page at www.netbsd.org.)

    You'll want to map root to `root' (rather than the default
    `nobody') when you export your root filesystem. A typical
    /etc/exports line on a NetBSD system would be:

        /usr/export/alpha -maproot=0 myclient.mydom.com

    If you just want to get the install kernel loaded so that you
    can download sets to the local hard drive of that machine, you
    need nothing other than the install kernel in the NFS root
    directory on your server.

    For the TFTP setup, you need to copy the second stage bootstrap,
    netboot, into an appropriately named file (I use boot.netbsd.alpha)
    in the directory used by your TFTP server. If you extracted a full
    snapshot, you can get the netboot program from /usr/mdec/netboot;
    if not, you can get this from the installation/netboot directory
    where you found the alpha distribution.

    For the BOOTP server you need to specify the: 

         hardware type (Ethernet) 
         hardware address (Ethernet MAC address) 
         IP address of the client 
         subnet mask of the client 
         address of of the TFTP/NFS server 
         name of the second stage bootstrap loaded via TFTP 
         path to the root for the client (mounted via NFS) 

    Here's an example for a Unix system running bootpd: 

         myhost.mydom.com:\ 
                 :ht=ethernet:ha=0000c0391ae4:\ 
                 :ip=192.168.1.2:sm=255.255.255.0:\ 
                 :sa=192.168.1.1:bf=boot.netbsd.alpha:rp=/usr/export/alpha:

    And here's an example for a Unix system running dhcpd:

        host axp {
                hardware ethernet 0:0:c0:39:1a:e4;
                fixed-address 192.168.1.2;
                option host-name "myhost.mydom.com";
                filename "boot.netbsd.alpha";
                option root-path "/usr/export/alpha";
                option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
                option broadcast-address 255.255.255.0;
                option domain-name "my.domain";
        }

2.2.2 The Alpha Console

    The only Ethernet device the console on most Alpha systems
    knows how to boot from is the onboard Ethernet interface or a
    DEC Tulip (21040, 21041, 21140) based PCI Ethernet card. Some
    older SMC 100 Mbps card that use this chip have been known to
    work as well. Many older systems will not be able to use the
    newer 2.0 stepping of the 21140, however. If your system appears
    not to be receiving packets, this may be the problem. (You may
    or may not be able to update your firmware to fix this; see
    the alpha port pages on www.netbsd.org for more information on
    this.)

    Once you're set up, you should be able to boot with:

            boot -proto bootp ewa0

    (The command may be different on some very old machines.)

3. Preparing the Disk

    If you're going to be running a diskless machine, the steps so
    far have prepared you to run, and you can skip to section 5
    ("Configuration") below.

    If you are going to run NetBSD from a local hard drive, however,
    this hard drive needs to be prepared. This preparation consists
    of putting a label on the disk, which includes information on
    the sizes and placement of the partition into which the disk
    is divided, putting the boot blocks on the disk, and initialising
    the filesystems on the partitions. This work is done by the
    `install' script from the boot floppy (or boot kernel, if you
    booted it via NFS with the INSTALL kernel).

3.1 Running Install

    When you first boot the INSTALL kernel you will be given the
    options of `install' or `shell'. Choose `install' and the
    install script will start.

    If, at any time, you have made a mistake in the install script
    and want to abort, press ^C. This will take you to a shell
    prompt.  You can then restart the install script by typing
    `/install', or halt the machine by typing `halt'.

3.1 Answering the Install Questions

    These will for the most part be fairly obvious. You may install
    on either a SCSI or an IDE disk, and you will be prompted for
    the disk to install on. The disks in your system will be numbered
    starting at xd0 (where x is an `s' for SCSI disks, `w' for IDE
    disks) based on the SCSI ID or IDE drive order; if you have
    more than one disk, watch the boot messages carefully to see
    which ones are probed as which numbers.

    Once you've selected a disk to install on, you'll be prompted
    for the geometry. This is also displayed in the boot messages,
    and you'll be given a chance to review the boot messages again
    to get the exact figures for the number of cylinders, heads
    and sectors.

    After this you must specify the size of your partitions.
    Generally you'll be giving the sizes in cylinders; the install
    program will tell you how many bytes there are in each cylinder.

    The swap partition is the second thing you specify, after the
    root partition. Regardless of the size of your disk, you'll
    want to specify a swap partition that's at least as large as
    the amount of RAM you have, and probably not less than 64 MB
    in any case.

    If you have a small disk (under 500 MB), it's probably best to
    devote all of the disk (excepting 64 MB or more for the swap)
    to the root partition.

    If you have more space, we recommend devoting at least 32 MB,
    and preferably 48 MB, to the root partition. /usr will need
    150 MB or so if you're not installing X, 200 MB or so if you
    are.

    Once you've specified this information, the install script will
    write the disklabel, install boot blocks to make the disk
    bootable, initialise the filesystems, and mount them all under
    /mnt. You're now ready to go on to the next step.

4. Installing NetBSD

    To install NetBSD you'll have to get access to the tar files
    that contain the operating system, and extract them to your
    disk.  You can get access to the tar files through either a
    network or from a CD-ROM.

4.1 Preparing to Install from a CD-ROM

    All you need to do is mount the CD-ROM, which will generally
    be device cd0. (The initial boot messages will tell you what
    the CD-ROM drive as probed as.) This would be done with:

        mount -r -t cd9660 /dev/cd0a /mnt2

4.2 Preparing to Install from the Network

    The first thing you need to do is configure the loopback network
    interface, which is done with the command

        ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.1

    Then you will have to configure your Ethernet card. The command

        ifconfig -l

    will give you a list of the network interfaces on your system.
    It will show you your ethernet cards first, followed by lo0
    (the loopback interface that we configured above), ppp0 (the
    PPP interface) and sl0 (the SLIP interface).

    To configure your ethernet card, type

        ifconfig <if> inet <addr> [netmask <netmask>] [media <media>]

    Where <if> is the network card (interface), <addr> is the IP
    address, the optional <netmask> parameter is the network mask,
    and the optional <media> parameter is one of:

        10base2         BNC connector, 10 Mbps
        AUI             AUI connector, 10 Mbps
        10baseT         Twisted pair connector, 10 Mbps
        100baseTX       Twisted pair connector, 100 Mbps
        100baseFX       Fibre-optic connector, 100 Mbps
        100baseT4       T4 twisted pair interface, 100 Mbps

    If the host you are getting the data files from is not on the
    local network, you will also have to configure a gateway into
    your system. Do this with

        route add default <gateway-IP-address>

    If you will need name services you can set up a /etc/resolv.conf
    file for those with a `nameserver <ip-address>' line in it, e.g.:

        echo "nameserver 198.41.0.4" >>/etc/resolv.conf

    Once networking has been configured, you may mount the directory
    with the install files via NFS, or download them via FTP.

    To mount them via nfs, type

        mount -t nfs <hostname:/path/to/nfs/volume> /mnt2

    If this volume has been exported read-only, you may need the
    `-r' option to mount.

    To download the install sets with ftp, create a directory in
    which to put them and then use the ftp client to download them.
    A typical session might be:

        mkdir /mnt/var/tmp
        cd /mnt/var/tmp
        ftp ftp.netbsd.org
        [all the following commmands are given to the ftp program
            after logging in]
        prompt
        cd /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3/alpha/binary/sets
        mget *
        cd /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3/alpha/binary/kernel
        get netbsd-GENERIC.gz
        cd /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3/alpha/binary/toolchain
        get netbsd-GENERIC.gz
        bye

    Feel free, of course, to leave off the sets that you don't need
    if you don't plan to install everything.

    You are now ready to proceed to step 4.3.

4.3 Extracting the Operating System Files

    This is quite simple. Change to the root directory of your hard
    drive (which is /mnt if you've used the standard install script
    to this point) by typing

        cd /mnt

    Then extract the kernel with:

        zcat /mnt/var/tmp/netbsd-GENERIC.gz >/mnt/netbsd

    For this and the following commands, replace `/mnt/var/tmp/'
    with the path to your NFS volume or CD-ROM if that's how you
    chose to access your install files instead.

    The sets are extracted with

        for file in base comp etc games man misc text; do
            tar --unlink -t -z -f /mnt/var/tmp/$file;
            done

    and the toolchain with

        tar --unlink -t -z -f /mnt/var/tmp/toolchain.tar.gz

    You will now be ready to reboot from your hard disk. Type `sync'
    twice to make sure all the data is written out to disk and then
    type `halt' to halt your system and go back to the monitor. At
    this point you should be able to reboot your system with

        boot dka0

    (or `boot dka100' if your disk drive is on ID 1, etc.--you can
    usually use `show device' to see a full list of bootable devices
    in your system). Your system will come up in single-user mode,
    ready for you to configure it.

5. Configuring NetBSD

    Configuring your NetBSD system requires editing the /etc/rc.conf
    file. Most of this file is fairly self-explanatory, but you
    can `man rc.conf' for further explanations. Remember to set
    `rc_configured' to YES so you will boot multi-user, set `hostname'
    and possibly `defaultroute', and add an ifconfig_int for your
    interface <int>, along the lines of

        ifconfig_de0="inet myname.my.dom 123.45.67.89 netmask 255.255.255.0"

    You will also want either to run named or add an /etc/resolv.conf
    file (`man resolv.conf' for information on this), use `vipw' to add
    accounts to your system, edit /etc/aliases to forward root mail to
    the right place (run `newaliases' afterwards) and edit /etc/rc.local
    to run any local daemons you use.