xfer revision 1.2 1 Installation is supported from several media types, including:
2 * Tape
3 * NFS
4 * CD-ROM
5 * FTP
6
7 Note that installing on a "bare" machine requires some bootable
8 device; either a tape drive or Sun-compatible NFS server.
9
10 The procedure for transferring the distribution sets onto
11 installation media depends on the type of media. Instructions
12 for each type of media are given below.
13
14 In order to create installation media, you will need all the
15 files in these two directories:
16 .../NetBSD-1.2/sun3/install
17 .../NetBSD-1.2/sun3/binary
18
19 * Creating boot/install tapes:
20
21 Installing from tape is the simplest method of all.
22 This method uses two tapes; one called the "boot"
23 tape, and another called the "install" tape.
24
25 The boot tape is created as follows:
26
27 cd .../NetBSD-1.2/sun3/install
28 set T = /dev/nrst0
29 mt -f $T rewind
30 dd if=tapeboot of=$T obs=8k conv=sync
31 gzip -dc netbsd-rd.gz | dd of=$T obs=8k conv=sync
32 gzip -dc miniroot.gz | dd of=$T obs=8k
33 mt -f $T rewind
34
35 The install tape is created as follows:
36
37 cd .../NetBSD-1.2/sun3/install
38 set T = /dev/nrst0
39 mt -f $T rewind
40 foreach f (base etc comp games man misc text)
41 gzip -d < $f.gz | dd of=$T bs=8k
42 end
43 mt -f $T rewind
44
45 If the tapes do not work as expected, you may need to explicitly
46 set the EOF mark at the end of each tape segment. It may also be
47 necessary to use the `conv=osync' argument to dd(1). Note that
48 this argument is incompatible with the `bs=' argument. Consult
49 the tape-related manual pages on the system where the tapes are
50 created for more details.
51
52 * Boot/Install from NFS server:
53
54 If your machine has a disk and network connection, but no tape drive,
55 it may be convenient for you to install NetBSD over the network. This
56 involves temporarily booting your machine over NFS, just long enough
57 so you can initialize its disk. This method requires that you have
58 access to an NFS server on your network so you can configure it to
59 support diskless boot for your machine. Configuring the NFS server
60 is normally a task for a system administrator, and is not trivial.
61
62 If you are using a NetBSD system as the boot-server, have a look at
63 the diskless(8) manual page for guidelines on how to proceed with
64 this. If the server runs another operating system, consult the
65 documentation that came with it (i.e. add_client(8) on SunOS).
66
67 Your Sun3 expects to be able to download a second stage bootstrap
68 program via TFTP after having acquired its IP address through RARP
69 when instructed to boot "over the net". It will look for a filename
70 derived from the machine's IP address expressed in hexadecimal. For
71 example, a sun3 which has been assigned IP address 130.115.144.11
72 will make an TFTP request for `8273900B'. Normally, this file is a
73 symbolic link to the NetBSD/sun3 "netboot" program, which should be
74 located in a place where the TFTP daemon can find it (remember, many
75 TFTP daemons run in a chroot'ed environment). The netboot program
76 may be found in the install directory of this distribution.
77
78 The netboot program will query a bootparamd server to find the
79 NFS server address and path name for its root, and then load a
80 kernel from that location. The server should have a copy of the
81 netbsd-rd kernel in the root area for your client (no other files
82 are needed in the client root) and /etc/bootparams on the server
83 should have an entry for your client and its root directory.
84 The client will need access to the miniroot image, which can be
85 provided using NFS or remote shell. If using NFS, miniroot.gz
86 must be expanded on the server, because there is no gzip program
87 in the RAMDISK image. The unzipped miniroot takes 8MB of space.
88
89 If you will be installing NetBSD on several clients, it may be useful
90 to know that you can use a single NFS root for all the clients as long
91 as they only use the netbsd-rd kernel. There will be no conflict
92 between clients because the RAM-disk kernel will not use the NFS root.
93 No swap file is needed; the RAM-disk kernel does not use that either.
94
95 * Install/Upgrade from CD-ROM:
96
97 This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
98 or network, as described above). You may need to make a boot tape
99 on another machine using the files provided on the CD-ROM. Once
100 you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel) and loaded the
101 miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets directly from
102 the CD-ROM. The "install" program in the miniroot automates the
103 work required to mount the CD-ROM and extract the files.
104
105 * Install/Upgrade via FTP:
106
107 This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
108 or network, as described above). You may need to make a boot tape
109 on another machine using the files in .../install (which you get
110 via FTP). Once you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel)
111 and loaded the miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets
112 over the net using FTP. The "install" program in the miniroot
113 automates the work required to configure the network interface and
114 transfer the files.
115
116 This method, of course, requires network access to an FTP server.
117 This might be a local system, or it might even be ftp.NetBSD.ORG
118 itself. If you wish to use ftp.NetBSD.ORG as your FTP file
119 server, you may want to keep the following information handy:
120
121 IP Address: ftp.NetBSD.ORG
122 Login: anonymous
123 Password: <your e-mail address>
124 Server path: /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.2/sun3/binary
125
126 Note: if you're not using a nameserver duing installation,
127 you might find 206.86.8.12 handy; it's the IP address of
128 ftp.NetBSD.ORG as of September 2, 1996.
129