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1Installation is supported from several media types, including: 2 3 DOS floppies 4 Tape 5 Remote NFS partition 6 FTP 7 8No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have a 9floppy disk (either 1.2M or 1.44 will work). You'll put the boot 10floppy image (boot-12G.fs) onto this disk, which contains software to 11install or upgrade your NetBSD system. 12 13[Note: previous versions of NetBSD used several floppy images, 14including several kernel/boot floppies depending on hardware 15configuration, an install floppy, and an upgrade floppy. NetBSD _VER 16only requires a single floppy for all tasks and configurations.] 17 18If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to 19disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image 20(.fs file) directly to the raw floppy disk. It is suggested that you 21read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to 22determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly 23different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the 24possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. 25 26If you are using DOS to write the floppy image to disk, you should 27use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "i386/utilities" directory 28of the NetBSD distribution. It will write the file system image (.fs 29file) to disks. 30 31Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be 32write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their 33root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the 34floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be 35removed from the disk drive. 36 37Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for 38installation or upgrade depend on which installation medium you 39choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below. 40 41To install or upgrade NetBSD using DOS floppies, you need to do the 42following: 43 44 Count the number of "set_name.xx" files that make up the 45 distribution sets you want to install or upgrade. You will 46 need one fifth that number of 1.2M floppies, or one sixth that 47 number of 1.44M floppies. You should only use one size of 48 floppy for the install or upgrade procedure; you can't use 49 some 1.2M floppies and some 1.44M floppies. 50 51 Format all of the floppies with DOS. DO NOT make any of them 52 bootable DOS floppies, i.e. don't use "format/s" to format 53 them. (If the floppies are bootable, then the DOS system 54 files that make them bootable will take up some space, and you 55 won't be able to fit as many distribution set parts per disk.) 56 If you're using floppies that are formatted for DOS by their 57 manufacturers, they probably aren't bootable, and you can use 58 them out of the box. 59 60 Place all of the "set_name.xx" files on the DOS disks, five 61 per disk if you're using 1.2M disks, six per disk if you're 62 using 1.44M disks. How you do this is up to you; there are 63 many possibilities. You could, for instance, use a DOS 64 terminal program to download them on to the floppies, or use 65 a UN*X-like system capable of reading and writing DOS file 66 systems (either with "mtools" or a real DOS file system) 67 to place them on the disk. 68 69 Once you have the files on DOS disks, you can proceed to the 70 next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're 71 installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing 72 your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing 73 installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. 74 75To install or upgrade NetBSD using a tape, you need to do the 76following: 77 78 To install NetBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that 79 contains the distribution set files, in "tar" format. If 80 you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way 81 to do so is probably something like: 82 83 tar cf <tape_device> <dist_directories> 84 85 where "<tape_device>" is the name of the tape device that 86 describes the tape drive you're using (possibly /dev/rst0, or 87 something similar, but it will vary from system to system. 88 (If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.) 89 In the above example, "<dist_directories>" are the 90 distribution sets' directories, for the distribution sets you 91 wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the 92 "kern12G", "base12G" and "etc12G" distributions on tape (in 93 order to do the absolute minimum installation to a new disk), 94 you would do the following: 95 96 cd .../NetBSD-_VER # the top of the tree 97 cd i386/binary 98 tar cf <tape_device> base12G etc12G kern12G 99 100 (Note that you still need to fill in "<tape_device>" in the 101 example.) 102 103 Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the 104 next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're 105 installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing 106 your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing 107 installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. 108 109To install or upgrade NetBSD using a remote partition, mounted via 110NFS, you must do the following: 111 112 NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for 113 those already familiar with using BSD network 114 configuration and management commands. If you aren't, 115 this documentation should help, but is not intended to 116 be all-encompassing. 117 118 Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a 119 directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable 120 by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD. 121 This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on 122 of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). 123 (Both of these actions will probably require superuser 124 privileges on the server.) 125 126 You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, 127 and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to 128 the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, 129 you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest 130 to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric 131 IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. 132 133 Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the 134 information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step 135 in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing 136 NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard 137 disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go 138 directly to the section on upgrading. 139 140To install or upgrade NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation 141sets, you must do the following: 142 143 NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for 144 those already familiar with using BSD network 145 configuration and management commands. If you aren't, 146 this documentation should help, but is not intended to 147 be all-encompassing. 148 149 The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are 150 easy; all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which 151 you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about to 152 install or upgrade. You need to know the numeric IP address 153 of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected 154 to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, 155 you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest 156 to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric 157 IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. 158 159 Once you have this information, you can proceed to the next 160 step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're 161 installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on 162 preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an 163 existing installation, go directly to the section on 164 upgrading. 165 166If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing 167NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing 168file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the 169following: 170 171 Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in 172 your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on 173 the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0, 174 sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than 175 three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets 176 on the high numbered drives. 177 178 At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern" 179 binary distribution, and so must put the "base12G" and 180 "kern12G" sets somewhere in your file system. If you wish, 181 you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade 182 the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system 183 configuration files that you should review and update by hand. 184 185 Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in 186 the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system. 187