xfer revision 1.4 
1	$NetBSD: xfer,v 1.4 1998/07/05 13:59:25 ross Exp $	
2
3Installation is supported from several media types, including:
4
5        FTP
6        Remote NFS partition
7        CD-ROM
8
9No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have
10either a 1.44 MB floppy disk (if your Alpha has a floppy drive to
11boot from) or you'll have to set up a server with BOOTP, TFTP and
12NFS to boot from as described later in this document.
13
14If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to
15disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system
16image ("floppy-144" file) directly to the raw floppy disk.  It is
17suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system
18administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it
19will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive
20list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. The
21command will look something like "dd if=floppy-144 bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a".
22
23If you are using DOS to create the boot floppy, you should use the
24"rawrite" utility provided in the "i386/utilities" directory of
25the NetBSD distribution to write the file system image ("floppy-144"
26file) to a floppy.
27
28Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be
29write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their
30root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the
31floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be
32removed from the disk drive.
33
34Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets
35for installation depend on which installation medium you choose.
36The steps for the various media are outlined below.
37
38To install NetBSD using NFS to get the installation sets, you must
39do the following:
40
41        Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a
42        directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable
43        by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD.
44        This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on
45        of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd).
46        (Both of these actions will probably require superuser
47        privileges on the server.)
48
49        You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server,
50        and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to
51        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
52        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
53        to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know the numeric
54        IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The install
55        program will ask you to provide this information to be able
56        to access the sets.
57
58        Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the
59        information mentioned above, you can start the actual
60        installation process.
61
62To install NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you
63must do the following:
64
65        The preparations for this installation method are easy;
66        all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
67        you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about
68        to install. You need to know the numeric IP address of that
69        site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to
70        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
71        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router
72        closest to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know
73        the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The
74        install program will ask you to provide this information
75        to be able to access the sets via ftp.
76
77        Once you have this information, you can proceed to the actual
78        installation.
79
80To install NetBSD by using a CD-ROM to get the installation sets,
81you must do the following:
82
83        Have a CD-ROM with the installation sets on it, and a CD-ROM
84        drive on your machine.
85
86If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing
87NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing
88file system, and using them from there.  To do that, you must do the
89following:
90
91        Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in
92        your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on
93        the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0,
94        sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than
95        three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets
96        on the high numbered drives.
97
98        At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern"
99        binary distribution, and so must put the "base" and
100        "kern" sets somewhere in your file system.  If you wish,
101        you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade
102        the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system
103        configuration files that you should review and update by hand.
104
105        Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in
106        the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.
107