install revision 1.1
1Installing NetBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have 2this document in hand and are careful to read and remember the 3information which is presented to you by the install program, it 4shouldn't be too much trouble. 5 6Before you begin, you should know the geometry of your hard disk, i.e. 7the sector size (note that sector sizes other than 512 bytes are not 8currently supported), the number of sectors per track, the number of 9tracks per cylinder (also known as the number of heads), and the 10number of cylinders on the disk. The NetBSD kernel will try to 11discover these parameters on its own, and if it can it will print them 12at boot time. If possible, you should use the parameters it prints. 13(You might not be able to because you're sharing your disk with 14another operating system, or because your disk is old enough that the 15kernel can't figure out its geometry.) 16 17If NetBSD will be sharing the disk with Human68k or another operating 18system, you should have already completed the section of these notes 19that instructed you on how to prepare your hard disk. You should know 20the size of the NetBSD area of the disk and its offset from the 21beginning of the disk. You will need this information when setting up 22your NetBSD partitions. 23 24You should now be ready to install NetBSD. It might be handy for you 25to have a pencil, some paper, and a calculator handy. 26 27The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while 28getting NetBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a 29default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the 30question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C 31at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation 32process again from scratch. 33 34 Boot your machine using of the appropriate kernel-copy floppy. 35 If the boot prompt does not appear in a reasonable amount of 36 time, you either have a bad boot floppy or a hardware problem. 37 Try writing the kernel-copy floppy image to a different disk, 38 and using that. If it still doesn't work, NetBSD probably 39 can't be run on your hardware. This can probably be 40 considered a bug, so you might want to report it. If you do, 41 please include as many details about your system configuration 42 as you can. 43 44 It will take a while to load the kernel from the floppy, 45 probably around a minute or so. After its loaded, you will be 46 presented with the message: 47 "Insert file system floppy" 48 If you do not see that message after a reasonable time has 49 elapsed, or the spinning cursor has stopped and nothing 50 further has happened, either your boot floppy is bad or you 51 are having hardware problems, and should proceed as outlined 52 above. 53 54 Once you have reached that prompt, remove the kernel-copy 55 floppy from the floppy drive. Make sure that the installation 56 disk (the "inst12" floppy) is writable, insert it into the 57 floppy drive, and hit any key. 58 59 You will then be presented with the NetBSD kernel boot 60 messages. You will want to read them, to determine your 61 disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like 62 "sd0" or "wd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that 63 begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your 64 disk's geometry when creating NetBSD's partitions. You will 65 also need to know the name, to tell the install tools what 66 disk to install on. 67 68 While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You 69 should be warned that no swap space is present, and that 70 init(8) cannot find /etc/rc. Do not be alarmed, these are 71 completely normal. When you reach the prompt asking you for a 72 shell name, just hit return. 73 74 You will be presented with a welcome message and a prompt, 75 asking if you wish to proceed with the installation process. 76 If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and hit return. 77 78 You will be asked what type of disk driver you have. The 79 valid options are listed by the install program, to make sure 80 you get it right. If you are SURE that it does, reply 81 affirmatively. Otherwise, the install program will 82 automatically reserve space for bad144 tables. 83 84 The install program will then tell you which disks of that 85 type it can install on, and ask you which it should use. 86 Reply with the name of your disk. 87 88 You will then be asked to name your disk's disklabel. The 89 default response is "mywd" or "mysd" depending on the type of 90 your disk, and for most purposes it will be OK. If you choose 91 to name it something different, make sure the name is a single 92 word and contains no special characters. You don't need to 93 remember this name. 94 95 You will be prompted for your disk's geometry information, 96 i.e. the number of bytes per sector, cylinders on the disk, 97 tracks per cylinder (heads), and sectors per track. Enter 98 them when they are requested. If you make a mistake, hit 99 Control-C and when you get to the shell prompt, restart the 100 install process by running the "install" command. Once you 101 have entered this data, the install program will tell you the 102 total size of your disk, in both sectors, and cylinders. 103 Remember this number; if you're installing on the whole disk, 104 you'll need it again soon. 105 106 When describing your partitions, you will have the option of 107 entering data about them in units of disk sectors or 108 cylinders. If you choose to enter the information in units of 109 sectors, remember that, for optimal performance, partitions 110 should begin and end on cylinder boundaries. You will be 111 asked about which units you wish to use, and you should reply 112 with "c" for cylinders, or "s" for sectors. 113 114 You will be asked for the size of the NetBSD portion of the 115 disk. If you're installing on the whole disk, reply with the 116 size of the disk, as printed earlier by the install program. 117 If you're using only part of the disk, reply with the size 118 that you specified in the partition editor. (Don't forget to 119 enter the size in the units you specified in the last step!) 120 121 If you are not installing on the whole disk, you will be asked 122 fro the offset of the NetBSD partition from the beginning of 123 the disk. Reply with the appropriate offset (again, in 124 whichever units you specified), as determined by how you 125 set up your disk using the partition editor. 126 127 You will be asked to enter the size of your NetBSD root 128 partition. It should be at least 13M, but if you are going to 129 be doing development, 14-16M is a more desirable size. This 130 size should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, 131 depending on which you said you wanted to use. 132 133 Next, you will be asked for the size of your swap partition. 134 You should probably allocate twice as much swap space as you 135 have real memory. Systems that will be heavily used should 136 have more swap space allocated, and systems that will be 137 lightly used can get by with less. If you want the system to 138 be able to save crash dumps when it panics, you will need at 139 least as much swap space as you have RAM. Again, this number 140 should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, as 141 appropriate. 142 143 The install program will then ask you for information about 144 the rest of the partitions you want on your disk. For most 145 purposes, you will want only one more partition, "/usr". 146 (Machines used as servers will probably also want /var as a 147 separate partition. That can be done with these installation 148 tools, but is not covered here.) The install program will 149 tell you how much space there is left to be allocated in the 150 NetBSD area of the disk, and, if you only want one more 151 partition ("/usr"), you should enter it at the prompt when the 152 installer asks you how large the next partition should be. 153 It will then ask you for the name of the mount point for that 154 partition. If you're doing a basic installation, that is 155 "/usr". 156 157 YOU ARE NOW AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. Nothing has been 158 written to your disk yet, but if you confirm that you want to 159 install NetBSD, your hard drive will be modified, and its 160 contents may be scrambled at the whim of the install program. 161 This is especially likely if you have given the install 162 program incorrect information. If you are sure you want to 163 proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt. 164 165 The install program will now label your disk and make the file 166 systems you specified. The filesystems will be initialized to 167 contain NetBSD bootstrapping binaries and configuration files. 168 It will also create an /etc/fstab for your system, and mount 169 all of the file systems under /mnt. (In other words, your root 170 partition will be mounted on /mnt, your /usr partition on 171 /mnt/usr, and so on.) There should be no errors in this 172 section of the installation. If there are, restart from the 173 beginning of the installation process. 174 175 You will be placed at a shell prompt ("#"). The remaining 176 tasks are to copy the kernel from the kernel copy floppy to 177 the hard drive's root filesystem and install the distribution 178 sets. The flow of installation differs depending on your 179 hardware resources, and on what media the distribution sets 180 reside. 181 182 To install from floppy: 183 If you only have only one floppy drive, the order of 184 installation is different. Follow the directions in 185 the "Kernel installation" section which will help you 186 install a kernel on the hard drive and then boot off 187 the hard drive, then continue with the rest of the 188 process described here to install the distribution 189 sets from floppy: 190 191 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary 192 directory where the distribution files can be stored. 193 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter 194 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget 195 that if your disk is still mounted under /mnt; you 196 should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) 197 198 After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the 199 "Load_fd" command, to load the distribution sets from 200 your floppies. 201 202 You will be asked which floppy drive to use. Enter 203 "0" (zero) if you're using the first floppy drive 204 (i.e. what DOS would call "A:"), or enter "1" if 205 you're using the second. (Remember that you CANNOT 206 use the floppy drive that you booted from. If you 207 booted from "A:", you must load from "B:".) 208 209 You will be prompted to insert a floppy into the drive, 210 to have its contents copied to your hard disk. Do so, 211 and hit return to begin copying. When that is done, 212 read the remainder of the floppies that contain the 213 distribution sets that you want to install, one by 214 one. When the last is read, and you are being 215 prompted for another, hit Control-C. 216 217 Run the "Extract" command once for each distribution 218 set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to 219 install the "base12" distribution set, followed by the 220 "man12" distribution set, and finally the "etc12" 221 distribution set, use the commands: 222 Extract base12 223 Extract man12 224 Extract etc12 225 226 For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction 227 should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it 228 will print out the name of each file that's being 229 extracted. 230 231 (Note: if you know that you will be running low on 232 disk space when installing NetBSD, you can load and 233 extract one distribution set at a time. To do this, 234 load only the floppies which contain the files for the 235 first distribution set, extract them, and then change 236 to the temporary directory and remove them with the 237 command "rm set_name.??".) 238 239 Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that 240 you wish to install, you should proceed to the 241 instructions below (after the last install medium 242 type-specific instructions), that explain how you 243 should configure your system. 244 245 To install from tape: 246 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary 247 directory where the distribution files can be stored. 248 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter 249 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget 250 that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should 251 probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The 252 default is /mnt/usr/distrib. 253 254 After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the 255 "Load_tape" command, to load the distribution sets from 256 tape. 257 258 You will be asked which tape drive to use. The 259 default is "rst0", which is correct if you're using 260 the SCSI tape drive with the lowest SCSI ID number. 261 (For the SCSI tape drive with the next lowest SCSI ID 262 number, you should use "rst1", and so on.) 263 264 You will be prompted to hit return when you have 265 inserted the tape into the tape drive. When you do, 266 the contents of the tape will be extracted into the 267 temporary directory, and the names of the files being 268 extracted will be printed. 269 270 After the tape has been extracted, to go the directory 271 containing the first distribution set you wish to 272 install. (Depending on how you made the tape, it's 273 probably a subdirectory of the temporary directory you 274 specified above.) Once there, run the "Set_tmp_dir" 275 command again, and accept its default answer by 276 hitting return at the prompt. 277 278 Use the "Extract" command to extract the distribution 279 set. For instance, if you're extracting the "base12" 280 set, use the command: 281 Extract base12 282 You will be asked if you wish the extraction to be 283 verbose. If you reply affirmatively, the name of each 284 file being extracted will be printed. 285 286 Repeat the previous two steps for each distribution 287 set you wish to install. Change to the set's 288 directory, run "Set_tmp_dir", and then run 289 "Extract <set_name>" to extract the set. 290 291 Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that 292 you wish to install, you should proceed to the 293 instructions below (after the last install medium 294 type-specific instructions), that explain how you 295 should configure your system. 296 297 To install via FTP or NFS: 298 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary 299 directory where the distribution files can be stored. 300 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter 301 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget 302 that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should 303 probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The 304 default is /mnt/usr/distrib. 305 306 Configure the appropriate ethernet interface (e.g. 307 ed0, ep0, etc.) up, with a command like: 308 309 ifconfig <ifname> <ipaddr> [netmask <netmask>] 310 311 where "<ifname>" is the interface name, like those 312 listed above, and "<ipaddr>" is the numeric IP address 313 of the interface. If the interface has a special 314 netmask, supply the word "netmask" at and that netmask 315 at the end of the command line. (The brackets 316 indicate that those arguments are optional.) For 317 instance, to configure interface ed0 with IP address 318 129.133.10.10, use the command: 319 320 ifconfig ed0 129.133.10.10 321 322 and to configure interface ep0 with IP address 323 128.32.240.167 and a special netmask, 0xffffff00, use 324 the command: 325 326 ifconfig ep0 128.32.240.167 netmask 0xffffff00 327 328 If your board selects software selection of the 329 ethernet interface to use, you might have to add 330 special flags to the "ifconfig" command you use. 331 Consult the table below for the appropriate flags: 332 333 Interface Type Connector Flags 334 --------- ---- --------- ----- 335 ed with WD/SMC* BNC [none necessary] 336 ed with WD/SMC* UTP [none necessary] 337 ed with WD/SMC* AUI link0 338 339 * Older WD boards do not support software configuration, 340 and must be configured via jumpers. These flags 341 will have no effect on them. 342 343 In other words, if, in the last example, the AUI port 344 of the board were being used, you would use the 345 command: 346 347 ifconfig ep0 128.32.240.167 netmask 0xffffff00 link0 348 349 If the NFS server or FTP server is not on a directly- 350 connected network, you need to set up a route to it 351 using a command like: 352 353 route add default <gate_ipaddr> 354 355 where <gate_ipaddr> is your gateway's numeric IP 356 address. 357 358 If you are NFS-mounting the distribution sets, mount 359 them on the temporary directory with a command like: 360 361 mount -t nfs <serv_ipaddr>:<dist_dir> <tmp_dir> 362 363 where <serv_ipaddr> is the server's numeric IP address, 364 <dist_dir> is the path to the distribution files on 365 the server, and <tmp_dir> is the name of the local 366 temporary directory. 367 368 Once this is done, proceed as if you had loaded the 369 files from tape, changing to the appropriate 370 directories, running "Set_tmp_dir", and running 371 "Extract" as appropriate. 372 373 If you are retrieving the distribution sets using ftp, 374 change into the temporary directory, and execute the 375 command: 376 377 ftp <serv_ipaddr> 378 379 where <serv_ipaddr> is once again the server's numeric 380 IP address. Get the files with FTP, taking care to 381 use binary mode when transferring the files. 382 383 Once you have all of the files for the distribution 384 sets that you wish to install, you can proceed using 385 the instructions above, as if you had installed from a 386 floppy. (Note that as with the floppy install, if 387 you're short on disk space, you can transfer only one 388 set at a time, extract it, then delete it, to save 389 space.) 390 391 Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets 392 that you wish to install, and are back at the "#" prompt, you 393 are ready to configure your system. The configuration utility 394 expects that you have installed the "base12" and "etc12" 395 distribution sets. If you have not, you will not be able to 396 run it successfully (nor will you have a functional system, in 397 any case). To configure your newly-installed NetBSD system, 398 run the command "Configure". It will ask you for the system's 399 host name, domain name, and other network configuration 400 information. It will set up your configuration files and make 401 the device nodes for the newly-installed system. 402 403Kernel Installation: 404 405 Enter "halt" at the prompt to halt the system. When the 406 system is halted, remove the "inst12" floppy from the floppy 407 drive, and replace it with the NetBSD 1.2 kernel-copy floppy 408 that you previously booted from. Reboot with that floppy. 409 with that floppy. 410 411 Once again, you will be prompted to insert a file system 412 floppy. DO NOT replace the kernel-copy floppy, just hit any 413 key. 414 415 Again, While booting, you may see several warnings. You may 416 be warned that no swap space is present, that init(8) cannot 417 find /etc/rc, and that one or more databases with names like 418 "pwd.db" cannot be found. Do not be alarmed, as, again, these 419 are completely normal. Hit return at the prompt asking you 420 for a shell name. 421 422 You will be presented with a shell prompt, at which you should 423 enter the "copy_kernel" command. It will ask you what 424 partition to copy the kernel to, and you should reply with the 425 name of your root partition (e.g. sd0a or wd0a). 426 427 You will be asked if you are sure that you want to copy the 428 kernel. Reply affirmatively, and it will check the file 429 system on your root partition, mount it, and copy the kernel. 430 Once the kernel is copied, you should use "halt" to halt the 431 system. 432 433 Once the system is halted, remove the kernel-copy floppy from 434 the floppy disk drive, and hit any key to reboot. 435 436Congratulations, you have successfully installed NetBSD 1.2. When you 437reboot into NetBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt. 438There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a 439networked environment, you should create yourself an account and 440protect it and the "root" account with good passwords. 441 442Some of the files in the NetBSD 1.2 distribution might need to be 443tailored for your site. In particular, the /etc/sendmail.cf file will 444almost definitely need to be adjusted, and other files in /etc will 445probably need to be modified, as well. If you are unfamiliar with 446UN*X-like system administration, it's recommended that you buy a book 447that discusses it. 448