install revision 1.6 1 $NetBSD: install,v 1.6 1998/11/04 14:21:30 minoura Exp $
2
3 Installing NetBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have
4 this document in hand and are careful to read and remember the
5 information which is presented to you by the install program, it
6 shouldn't be too much trouble.
7
8 Before you begin, you should know the geometry of your hard disk, i.e.
9 the sector size (note that sector sizes other than 512 bytes are not
10 currently supported), the number of sectors per track, the number of
11 tracks per cylinder (also known as the number of heads), and the
12 number of cylinders on the disk. The NetBSD kernel will try to
13 discover these parameters on its own, and if it can it will print them
14 at boot time. If possible, you should use the parameters it prints.
15 (You might not be able to because you're sharing your disk with
16 another operating system, or because your disk is old enough that the
17 kernel can't figure out its geometry.)
18
19 You should now be ready to install NetBSD. It might be handy for you
20 to have a pencil, some paper, and a calculator handy.
21
22 The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while
23 getting NetBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a
24 default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the
25 question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C
26 at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation
27 process again from scratch.
28
29 Boot your machine using of boot floppy. If the boot prompt
30 does not appear in a reasonable amount of time, you either
31 have a bad boot floppy or a hardware problem. Try writing the
32 boot floppy image to a different disk, and using that. If it
33 still doesn't work, NetBSD probably can't be run on your
34 hardware. This can probably be considered a bug, so you might
35 want to report it. If you do, please include as many details
36 about your system configuration as you can.
37
38 It will take a while to load the kernel from the floppy,
39 probably around a minute or so.
40
41 You will then be presented with the NetBSD kernel boot
42 messages. You will want to read them, to determine your
43 disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like
44 "sd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that
45 begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your
46 disk's geometry when creating NetBSD's partitions. You will
47 also need to know the name, to tell the install tools what
48 disk to install on.
49
50 While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You
51 should be warned that no swap space is present, and that
52 init(8) cannot find /etc/rc. Do not be alarmed, these are
53 completely normal. When you reach the prompt asking you for a
54 shell name, just hit return.
55
56 You will be presented with a welcome message and a prompt,
57 asking if you wish to proceed with the installation process.
58 If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and hit return.
59
60 The install program will then tell you which disks it can
61 install on, and ask you which it should use.
62 Reply with the name of your disk.
63
64 You will then be asked to name your disk's disklabel. The
65 default response is "mysd", and for most purposes it will be
66 OK. If you choose to name it something different, make sure
67 the name is a single word and contains no special characters.
68 You don't need to remember this name.
69
70 You will be prompted for your disk's geometry information,
71 i.e. the number of bytes per sector, cylinders on the disk,
72 tracks per cylinder (heads), and sectors per track. Enter
73 them when they are requested. If you make a mistake, hit
74 Control-C and when you get to the shell prompt, restart the
75 install process by running the "install" command. Once you
76 have entered this data, the install program will tell you the
77 total size of your disk, in both sectors, and cylinders.
78 Remember this number; if you're installing on the whole disk,
79 you'll need it again soon.
80
81 When describing your partitions, you will have the option of
82 entering data about them in units of disk sectors or
83 cylinders. If you choose to enter the information in units of
84 sectors, remember that, for optimal performance, partitions
85 should begin and end on cylinder boundaries. You will be
86 asked about which units you wish to use, and you should reply
87 with "c" for cylinders, or "s" for sectors.
88
89 You will be asked to enter the size of your NetBSD root
90 partition. It should be at least 15M, but if you are going to
91 be doing development, 20M is a more desirable size. This
92 size should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders,
93 depending on which you said you wanted to use.
94
95 Next, you will be asked for the size of your swap partition.
96 You should probably allocate twice as much swap space as you
97 have real memory. Systems that will be heavily used should
98 have more swap space allocated, and systems that will be
99 lightly used can get by with less. If you want the system to
100 be able to save crash dumps when it panics, you will need at
101 least as much swap space as you have RAM. Again, this number
102 should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, as
103 appropriate.
104
105 The install program will then ask you for information about
106 the rest of the partitions you want on your disk. For most
107 purposes, you will want only one more partition, "/usr".
108 (Machines used as servers will probably also want /var as a
109 separate partition. That can be done with these installation
110 tools, but is not covered here.) The install program will
111 tell you how much space there is left to be allocated in the
112 NetBSD area of the disk, and, if you only want one more
113 partition ("/usr"), you should enter it at the prompt when the
114 installer asks you how large the next partition should be.
115 It will then ask you for the name of the mount point for that
116 partition. If you're doing a basic installation, that is
117 "/usr".
118
119 YOU ARE NOW AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. Nothing has been
120 written to your disk yet, but if you confirm that you want to
121 install NetBSD, your hard drive will be modified, and its
122 contents may be scrambled at the whim of the install program.
123 This is especially likely if you have given the install
124 program incorrect information. If you are sure you want to
125 proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt.
126
127 The install program will now label your disk and make the file
128 systems you specified. The filesystems will be initialized to
129 contain NetBSD bootstrapping binaries and configuration files.
130 It will also create an /etc/fstab for your system, and mount
131 all of the file systems under /mnt. (In other words, your root
132 partition will be mounted on /mnt, your /usr partition on
133 /mnt/usr, and so on.) There should be no errors in this
134 section of the installation. If there are, restart from the
135 beginning of the installation process.
136
137 You will be placed at a shell prompt ("#"). The remaining
138 tasks are to copy the kernel from the kernel copy floppy to
139 the hard drive's root filesystem and install the distribution
140 sets. The flow of installation differs depending on your
141 hardware resources, and on what media the distribution sets
142 reside.
143
144 To install from removable hard disk:
145 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary
146 directory where the distribution files can be stored.
147 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter
148 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget
149 that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should
150 probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The
151 default is /mnt/usr/distrib.
152
153 Insert the media onto the drive. Check the device
154 name of your drive from the boot message. The device
155 name is something like "sd2" depending on the SCSI
156 disk drives connected to your machine. Note that the
157 boot message can be displayed with the command
158 "more /kern/msgbuf".
159
160 Mount the disk on the temporary directory with a
161 command like:
162
163 mount -t msdos /dev/sd2c <tmp_dir>
164
165 if your removable drive's name is sd2.
166
167 Run the "Extract" command once for each distribution
168 set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to
169 install the "base" distribution set, followed by the
170 "kern" distribution set, and finally the "etc"
171 distribution set, use the commands:
172 Extract base
173 Extract kern
174 Extract etc
175
176 For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction
177 should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it
178 will print out the name of each file that's being
179 extracted.
180
181 To install from floppy:
182 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary
183 directory where the distribution files can be stored.
184 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter
185 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget
186 that if your disk is still mounted under /mnt; you
187 should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.)
188
189 After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the
190 "Load_fd" command, to load the distribution sets from
191 your floppies.
192
193 You will be asked which floppy drive to use. Enter
194 "0" (zero) if you're using the first floppy drive
195 (i.e. what DOS would call "A:"), or enter "1" if
196 you're using the second.
197
198 You will be prompted to insert a floppy into the drive,
199 to have its contents copied to your hard disk. Do so,
200 and hit return to begin copying. When that is done,
201 read the remainder of the floppies that contain the
202 distribution sets that you want to install, one by
203 one. When the last is read, and you are being
204 prompted for another, hit Control-C.
205
206 Run the "Extract" command once for each distribution
207 set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to
208 install the "base" distribution set, followed by the
209 "kern" distribution set, and finally the "etc"
210 distribution set, use the commands:
211 Extract base
212 Extract kern
213 Extract etc
214
215 For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction
216 should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it
217 will print out the name of each file that's being
218 extracted.
219
220 (Note: if you know that you will be running low on
221 disk space when installing NetBSD, you can load and
222 extract one distribution set at a time. To do this,
223 load only the floppies which contain the files for the
224 first distribution set, extract them, and then change
225 to the temporary directory and remove them with the
226 command "rm set_name.??".)
227
228 Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that
229 you wish to install, you should proceed to the
230 instructions below (after the last install medium
231 type-specific instructions), that explain how you
232 should configure your system.
233
234 To install from tape:
235 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary
236 directory where the distribution files can be stored.
237 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter
238 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget
239 that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should
240 probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The
241 default is /mnt/usr/distrib.
242
243 After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the
244 "Load_tape" command, to load the distribution sets from
245 tape.
246
247 You will be asked which tape drive to use. The
248 default is "rst0", which is correct if you're using
249 the SCSI tape drive with the lowest SCSI ID number.
250 (For the SCSI tape drive with the next lowest SCSI ID
251 number, you should use "rst1", and so on.)
252
253 You will be prompted to hit return when you have
254 inserted the tape into the tape drive. When you do,
255 the contents of the tape will be extracted into the
256 temporary directory, and the names of the files being
257 extracted will be printed.
258
259 After the tape has been extracted, to go the directory
260 containing the first distribution set you wish to
261 install. (Depending on how you made the tape, it's
262 probably a subdirectory of the temporary directory you
263 specified above.) Once there, run the "Set_tmp_dir"
264 command again, and accept its default answer by
265 hitting return at the prompt.
266
267 Use the "Extract" command to extract the distribution
268 set. For instance, if you're extracting the "base"
269 set, use the command:
270 Extract base
271 You will be asked if you wish the extraction to be
272 verbose. If you reply affirmatively, the name of each
273 file being extracted will be printed.
274
275 Repeat the previous two steps for each distribution
276 set you wish to install. Change to the set's
277 directory, run "Set_tmp_dir", and then run
278 "Extract <set_name>" to extract the set.
279
280 Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that
281 you wish to install, you should proceed to the
282 instructions below (after the last install medium
283 type-specific instructions), that explain how you
284 should configure your system.
285
286 To install via FTP or NFS:
287 The first thing you should do is pick a temporary
288 directory where the distribution files can be stored.
289 To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter
290 the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget
291 that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should
292 probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The
293 default is /mnt/usr/distrib.
294
295 Configure the SLIP interface, with the following
296 command sequence:
297
298 slattach -h -s <speed> tty00
299 ifconfig sl0 <my_ipaddr> <peer_ipaddr>
300
301 where "<speed>" is the network speed, and "<my_ipaddr>"
302 is the numeric IP address of the machine you are going
303 to install NetBSD/x68k, while "<peer_ipaddr>" is the
304 address of the peer machine connected with your machine.
305 You might have to configure the peer SLIP interface
306 with similar sequence (depending on the peer system).
307
308 For instance, the sequence
309
310 slattach -h -s 38400 tty00
311 ifconfig sl0 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.10
312
313 configures the SLIP interface for the network between
314 your machine (with IP address 192.168.0.1) and the peer
315 (192.168.0.10) with speed 38400 bps. Note that IP
316 addresses 192.168.*.* are the private IP addresses
317 described in RFC 1597.
318
319 If you are NFS-mounting the distribution sets, mount
320 them on the temporary directory with a command like:
321
322 mount -t nfs <serv_ipaddr>:<dist_dir> <tmp_dir>
323
324 where <serv_ipaddr> is the server's numeric IP address,
325 <dist_dir> is the path to the distribution files on
326 the server, and <tmp_dir> is the name of the local
327 temporary directory.
328
329 Once this is done, proceed as if you had loaded the
330 files from tape, changing to the appropriate
331 directories, running "Set_tmp_dir", and running
332 "Extract" as appropriate.
333
334 If you are retrieving the distribution sets using ftp,
335 change into the temporary directory, and execute the
336 command:
337
338 ftp <serv_ipaddr>
339
340 where <serv_ipaddr> is once again the server's numeric
341 IP address. Get the files with FTP, taking care to
342 use binary mode when transferring the files.
343
344 Once you have all of the files for the distribution
345 sets that you wish to install, you can proceed using
346 the instructions above, as if you had installed from a
347 floppy. (Note that as with the floppy install, if
348 you're short on disk space, you can transfer only one
349 set at a time, extract it, then delete it, to save
350 space.)
351
352 Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets
353 that you wish to install, and are back at the "#" prompt, you
354 are ready to configure your system. The configuration utility
355 expects that you have installed the "base" and "etc"
356 distribution sets. If you have not, you will not be able to
357 run it successfully (nor will you have a functional system, in
358 any case). To configure your newly-installed NetBSD system,
359 run the command "Configure". It will ask you for the system's
360 host name, domain name, and other network configuration
361 information. It will set up your configuration files and make
362 the device nodes for the newly-installed system.
363
364
365 Congratulations, you have successfully installed NetBSD _VER. When you
366 reboot into NetBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt.
367 There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a
368 networked environment, you should create yourself an account and
369 protect it and the "root" account with good passwords.
370
371 Some of the files in the NetBSD _VER distribution might need to be
372 tailored for your site. In particular, the /etc/sendmail.cf file will
373 almost definitely need to be adjusted, and other files in /etc
374 including /etc/rc.conf will probably need to be modified, as well. If
375 you are unfamiliar with UN*X-like system administration, it's
376 recommended that you buy a book that discusses it.
377