xref: /src/distrib/notes/alpha/xfer

Installation is supported from several media types, including:

        FTP
        Remote NFS partition
        CD-ROM

No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have
either a 1.44 MB floppy disk (if your Alpha has a floppy drive to
boot from) or you'll have to set up a server with BOOTP, TFTP and
NFS to boot from as described later in this document.

If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to
disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image
(.fs file) directly to the raw floppy disk.  It is suggested that you
read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to
determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly
different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the
possibilities is beyond the scope of this document.

If you are using DOS to write the floppy image to disk, you should
use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "i386/utilities" directory
of the NetBSD distribution.  It will write the file system image (.fs
file) to disks.

Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be
write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their
root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the
floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be
removed from the disk drive.

Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets
for installation depend on which installation medium you choose.
The steps for the various media are outlined below.

To install NetBSD using NFS to get the installation sets, you must
do the following:

        Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a
        directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable
        by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD.
        This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on
        of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd).
        (Both of these actions will probably require superuser
        privileges on the server.)

        You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server,
        and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to
        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
        to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know the numeric
        IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The install
        program will ask you to provide this information to be able
        to access the sets.

        Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the
        information mentioned above, you can start the actual
        installation process.

To install NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you
must do the following:

        The preparations for this installation method are easy;
        all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
        you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about
        to install. You need to know the numeric IP address of that
        site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to
        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router
        closest to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know
        the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The
        install program will ask you to provide this information
        to be able to access the sets via ftp.

        Once you have this information, you can proceed to the actual
        installation.

To install NetBSD by using a CD-ROM to get the installation sets,
you must do the following:

        Have a CD-ROM with the installation sets on it, and a CD-ROM
        drive on your machine.

If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing
NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing
file system, and using them from there.  To do that, you must do the
following:

        Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in
        your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on
        the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0,
        sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than
        three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets
        on the high numbered drives.

        At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern"
        binary distribution, and so must put the "base" and
        "kern" sets somewhere in your file system.  If you wish,
        you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade
        the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system
        configuration files that you should review and update by hand.

        Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in
        the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.