. .(Note Currently .Nx \*V requires a dedicated drive if it is going to be run from a local disk drive. In other words, .Nx \*V cannot be installed on the hard drive on which MacOS and/or any other oparating systems reside. This is because the .Nx \*V install tools currently do not support Apple's Disk Partition Map. .Note)
p Before you start, you must choose a boot medium. There are several possibilities: l -bullet t Boot from the network t Boot from floppy (if your machine has one) t Boot from a CD-ROM t Boot from a disk drive prepared on another machine .El
p This latter option is not described further here.
p If you have a newer Macintosh, want to boot from the network, and don't want to pass any special options to the boot command, you can net-boot by resetting and holding the .Dq N key down during the boot sequence. In any other case, you will need to issue commands to the OpenFirmware in your Macintosh.
p The various Apple Macintosh machines have slightly different versions of OpenFirmware, and they vary somewhat in their capabilities, so the documentation provided here is more hints than the definitive all-encompassing truth about OpenFirmware on Macintosh machines. Some versions of OpenFirmware also have bugs -- check with Apple at
p .Lk http://asu.info.apple.com/
p if a firmware update is available for your particular model.
p To get into OpenFirmware, reset the Macintosh and hold down Command-Option-O-F while booting. The firmware checks the state of the keys some time after the startup chime -- exactly when varies from model to model. The G3 PowerBooks seem to be the pickiest about timing. If you're having problems, try waiting until the startup chime starts, then quickly press the keys before it finishes (and hold them down until you see the OpenFirmware screen). It's also been reported that it's easier to get into Open Firmware from a powered-off state than it is from a reboot.
p If your screen remains dark after this procedure, you have an old Macintosh where you must interact with OpenFirmware via the serial port at 38400 baud, parity none, 8 bits. Newer machines will give you a prompt on the screen.
p The OpenFirmware prompt looks like this: d -literal -offset ok 0 > .Ed
p If you want to always boot to OpenFirmware, enter the following at an OpenFirmware prompt d -literal -offset setenv auto-boot? false .Ed
p This can always be set back with d -literal -offset setenv auto-boot? true .Ed
p or you can reset all the settings to their defaults with d -literal -offset set-defaults .Ed
p If you want to boot from floppy, you can use d -literal -offset boot fd:0 .Ed
p If you want to boot from the network, you can use d -literal -offset boot enet:0 .Ed
p or possibly simply d -literal -offset boot enet .Ed
p When booting from the network the Macintosh will issue a BOOTP/DHCP query to get its IP address, and load the file given in the reply using TFTP. The file loaded is typically .Dq ofwboot.elf. This second-stage boot loader will in turn use DHCP again to get the Mac's IP address, the IP address of an NFS file server, and the root path to mount. ofwboot.elf will then use NFS to load the kernel, typically .Dq netbsd.
p You may want to inspect the Diskless NetBSD HOWTO for further information about setting up the environment for diskless use at
p .Lk http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/
p .(Note Older Macintosh machines' OpenFirmware may not have support for loading an ELF executable -- the error message may say .Dq OBJECT FILE FORMAT NOT RECOGNIZED. In that case, you need to use an XCOFF boot loader, named .Dq ofwboot.xcf. Once that boot loader runs, it can boot the normal ELF kernel just fine.
p Also note that some older Macintoshes which use BOOTP will need to have the .Dq Vendor Extensions flag set, typically by .Dq always-reply-rfc1048 in the DHCP daemon configuration file. .Note)
p If you want to run your Macintosh diskless, you will need to populate the NFS server's area used for your Macintosh with macppc binaries. Please also remember to do .Dq cd dev; ./MAKEDEV all to create the required device nodes, and edit etc/rc.conf and etc/fstab. If, on the other hand, you just want to load the install kernel via the network to install or upgrade your machine, you only need the install kernel installed in the root directory on the NFS server.
p In some cases you may want to interact with the ofwboot program to tell it which file to load. You can do that by passing the .Dq -a flag to the boot loader, i.e.: d -literal -offset boot enet:0 -a .Ed
p .(Note Using DHCP for network boot has the annoying problem that if you have some other network device which responds to .Dq anonymous DHCP queries on your network (cable modem, DSL box or the like), you may need to disconnect these devices in order to make the network boot of the Macintosh work. .Note)
p An example dhcpd.conf file follows. d -literal -offset # Notes: # To set up dhcpd, install this file and ensure that /var/db/dhcpd.leases # exists. # get-lease-hostnames true; # DNS lookup for dynamic IP's use-host-decl-names true; # take fixed-ip hostname from the # host <x> declaration subnet 10.50.100.5 netmask 255.255.255.248 { # no dynamically assigned addrs in this subnet option routers 10.50.100.1; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.248; option broadcast-address 10.50.100.7; } host majic { hardware ethernet 00:05:02:f7:22:d3; filename "ofwboot.elf"; next-server 10.50.100.3; option root-path "/usr/export/majic"; fixed-address majic; # always-reply-rfc1048 true; } .Ed
p .(Note The root-path has a rather short maximum length, and this may cause ofwboot.elf not to load your kernel. The above reportedly works, but adding .Dq /netbsd-nfsroot makes it not work. .Note)
p To boot from CD-ROM (if your Macintosh supports it; apparently only later models do), do d -literal -offset boot cd:,ofwboot.elf .Ed
p A few commands which may make it easier to get your machine going are: d -literal -offset boot scsi/sd@1:0 .Ed
p boots from the first bootable partition on target 1 on (of one of) the SCSI bus(es). d -literal -offset devalias .Ed
p shows the device aliases on your machine, .Dq scsi is typically a device alias. The command d -literal -offset dev / ls .Ed
p lists the entire device tree. d -literal -offset printenv .Ed
p displays the current .Dq environment variable settings in your OpenFirmware. Lastly, d -literal -offset reset-all .Ed
p reinitializes OpenFirmware.
Indexes created Wed Oct 22 13:09:56 GMT 2025