NetBSD/distrib/notes/sun2/xfer

.\"	$NetBSD: xfer,v 1.4 2002/11/18 12:39:53 lukem Exp $
.
Installation is supported from several media types, including:
.(bullet -compact -offset indent
Tape
.It
NFS
.It
CD-ROM
.It
FTP
.bullet)
.(Note
Installing on a
.Sq bare
machine requires some bootable device; either a tape drive or
.Tn Sun Ns No -compatible
NFS server.
.Note)
.Pp
The procedure for transferring the distribution sets onto
installation media depends on the type of media.
Instructions for each type of media are given below.
.Pp
In order to create installation media, you will need all the
files in the directory
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/
.
.Ss2 Creating boot/install tapes
.
Installing from tape is the simplest method of all.
This method uses two tapes; one called the
.Em boot
tape, and another called the
.Em install No tape.
.Pp
The boot tape is created as follows:
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "cd .../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/tapeimage"
.Dl # Ic "sh MakeBootTape /dev/nrst0"
.Pp
The install tape is created as follows:
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "cd .../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/tapeimage"
.Dl # Ic "sh MakeInstallTape /dev/nrst0"
.Pp
If the tapes do not work as expected, you may need to explicitly
set the EOF mark at the end of each tape segment.
It may also be necessary to use the
.Cm conv=osync
argument to
.Xr dd 1 .
Note that
this argument is incompatible with the
.Cm bs=
argument.
Consult the tape-related manual pages on the system where the tapes are
created for more details.
.
.Ss2 Boot/Install from NFS server
.
If your machine has a disk and network connection, but no tape drive,
it may be convenient for you to install
.Nx
over the network.
This involves temporarily booting your machine over NFS, just long enough
so you can initialize its disk.
This method requires that you have access to an NFS server on your network
so you can configure it to support diskless boot for your machine.
Configuring the NFS server
is normally a task for a system administrator, and is not trivial.
.Pp
If you are using a
.Nx
system as the boot-server, have a look at
the
.Xr diskless 8
manual page for guidelines on how to proceed with this.
If the server runs another operating system, consult the
documentation that came with it (i.e.
.Xr add_client 8
on
.Tn SunOS ) .
.Pp
When instructed to boot over the network, your \*M expects to be
able to download first and second stage bootstrap programs via
.Tn ND ,
the Network Disk protocol.
The
.Xr ndbootd 8
program will attempt to serve a second-stage bootstrap file using
a name derived from the machine's recently acquired IP
address and an extension which corresponds to the
machine architecture.
(It may be handy to have a hexadecimal
calculator for this next step.)
The filename prefix is created by converting the machine's assigned
IP address into hexadecimal, most-significant octet first,
using uppercase characters for the non-decimal (A-F) digits.
The filename suffix used by all sun2 machines is
.Pa SUN2 .
.Pp
For example, a \*M which has been assigned IP address 130.115.144.11
will be served a second-stage bootstrap file named
.Pa 8273900B.SUN2 .
Normally, this file
is a symbolic link to the
.Nx*M
.Pa netboot
program, which should
be located in a place where the
.Xr ndbootd 8
daemon can find it.
The
.Pa netboot
program may be found in the
.Pa installation/netboot
directory of this distribution.
.Pp
The netboot program will query a bootparamd server to find the
NFS server address and path name for its root, and then load a
kernel from that location.
The server should have a copy of the
.Pa netbsd-RAMDISK
kernel in the root area for your client, hard-linked
under the names
.Pa netbsd
and
.Pa vmunix
(no other files are needed in the client root) and
.Pa /etc/bootparams
on the server
should have an entry for your client and its root directory.
The client will need access to the miniroot image, which can be
provided using NFS or remote shell.
.Pp
If you will be installing
.Nx
on several clients, it may be useful
to know that you can use a single NFS root for all the clients as long
as they only use the
.Pa netbsd-RAMDISK
kernel.
There will be no conflict
between clients because the RAM-disk kernel will not use the NFS root.
No swap file is needed; the RAM-disk kernel does not use that either.
.
.Ss2 Install/Upgrade from CD-ROM
.
This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
or network, as described above). You may need to make a boot tape
on another machine using the files provided on the CD-ROM. Once
you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel) and loaded the
miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets directly from the CD-ROM.
The
.Ic install
program in the miniroot automates the
work required to mount the CD-ROM and extract the files.
.
.Ss2 Install/Upgrade via FTP
.
This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
or network, as described above). You may need to make a boot tape
on another machine using the files in
.Pa installation/tapeimage
and
.Pa binary/kernel
(which you get via FTP).
Once you have booted
.Pa netbsd-RAMDISK
(the RAM-disk kernel)
and loaded the miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets
over the net using FTP.
The
.Ic install
program in the miniroot
automates the work required to configure the network interface and
transfer the files.
.Pp
The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are easy; all
you make sure that there's some FTP site from which you can retrieve
the
.Nx
distribution when you're about to install or upgrade.
You need to know the numeric IP address of that site, and, if it's not on
a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing
or upgrading
.Nx ,
you need to know the numeric IP address of the
router closest to the
.Nx
machine.
Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the
.Nx
machine itself.