xfer revision 1.13 
1Installation is supported from several media types, including:
2
3	FTP
4	Remote NFS partition
5	DOS floppies
6
7No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have a
8floppy disk (either 1.2M or 1.44M will work).  You'll put the boot
9floppy image ("boot.fs" for 1.44M floppies, "boot-small.fs" for 1.2M
10floppies) onto this disk, which contains software to install or
11upgrade 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.]
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 start the
70	actual installation or upgrade process.
71
72To install or upgrade NetBSD using NFS, you must do the following:
73
74	Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a
75	directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable
76	by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD.
77	This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on
78	of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd).
79	(Both of these actions will probably require superuser
80	privileges on the server.)
81
82	You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server,
83	and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to
84	the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
85	you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
86	to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know the numeric
87	IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The install
88	program will ask you to provide this information to be able
89	to access the sets.
90
91	Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the
92	information mentioned above, you can start the actual
93	installation or upgrade process.
94
95To install or upgrade NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation
96sets, you must do the following:
97
98	The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are
99	easy; all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
100	you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about to
101	install or upgrade.  You need to know the numeric IP address
102	of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected
103	to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
104	you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
105	to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know the numeric
106	IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The install program
107	will ask you to provide this information to be able to access
108	the sets via ftp.
109
110	Once you have this information, you can proceed to the actual
111	installation or upgrade.
112
113If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing
114NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing
115file system, and using them from there.  To do that, you must do the
116following:
117
118        Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in
119        your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on
120        the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0,
121        sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than
122        three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets
123        on the high numbered drives.
124
125        At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern"
126        binary distribution, and so must put the "base" and
127        "kern" sets somewhere in your file system.  If you wish,
128        you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade
129        the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system
130        configuration files that you should review and update by hand.
131
132	Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in
133	the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.
134