NetBSD/distrib/notes/vax/xfer

.\"	$NetBSD: xfer,v 1.8 2000/10/29 14:08:12 lukem Exp $
.
.so ../common/xfer
.
.Ss2 Creating boot tapes
.
Fetch the bootable bootfs image from
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/bootfs/boot.fs.gz
.Pp
.Ic gunzip
.Pa boot.fs.gz
and write it on the beginning of the tape.
Under
.Nx
this is done (for MSCP tape, with SCSI tape the name is
.Li nrst0 )
via:
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "gunzip boot.fs.gz"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewind"
.Dl # Ic "dd if=boot.fs of=/dev/nrmt0"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewoffl"
.Pp
Under
.Tn Ultrix
the tape name is different:
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "gunzip boot.fs.gz"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewind"
.Dl # Ic "dd if=boot.fs of=/dev/rmt0h"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewoffl"
.Pp
Of course, if you have a tape unit other than unit 0 you have to use
the corresponding unit number.
.Pp
If you wish to install the sets from tape then stage you will need to
download the *.tgz files from
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/binary/sets Ns Ar {50,33}
.Pp
(if your disk is less than 200 MB you will probably want to exclude the
X sets) and then before the
.Ic "mt ... rewoffl"
run
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "tar -cvf /dev/nrmt0 *.tgz"
.Pp
When you have booted the bootfs and completed the disk partitioning
you will be prompted to
.Ic select medium
for install. At this point
you will need to press
.Key CONTROL-Z
to suspend the install tool, then
.Pp
.Dl # Ic "cd /mnt"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewind"
.Dl # Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 fsf"
.Dl # Ic "tar -xvf /dev/nrmt0"
.Dl # Ic "fg"
.Pp
then select
.Dq "install from local dir"
and give
.Pa /mnt .
.(Note
If your disk is small you will need to be careful about filling it up.
.Note)
.Pp
If you are using any other OS to create bootable tapes, remember that
the blocksize
.Em must
be 512 for the file to be bootable! Otherwise it just won't work.
.
.Ss2 Creating boot floppies
.
Fetch the bootable bootfs image from
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/bootfs/boot.fs.gz
.Pp
and
.Ic gunzip
it. It is a 1 MB bootable image that will boot from any
floppy of size 1 MB and bigger.
Note that you
.Em cannot
install from RX50 floppies due to the small size. This may change
in the future.
.Pp
All floppies except RX50 use a standardized format for storing data
so writing the bootfs to the floppy can be done on any PC. From
.Tn MS-DOS
the preferred way to do this is using
.Ic rawrite.exe .
.
.Ss2 Booting from NFS server
.
All VAXen that can boot over network uses MOP, a
.Tn DEC
protocol.
To be able to use MOP, a MOP daemon must be present on one of
the machines on the local network. The boot principle is:
.(bullet -compact -offset indent
The VAX broadcast a wish to load an image.
.It
A mopd answers and send the boot program to the VAX.
.It
The boot program does rarp/bootp requests, mounts the root file system
and loads the kernel.
.It
The kernel is loaded and starts executing.
.bullet)
.Pp
If your machine has a disk and network connection, 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
There is also very useful documentation at
.Lk http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/
.Pp
You also must install a MOP loader. If you are booting from another
.Nx
machine, the MOP daemons are included in the distribution,
otherwise you may have to install a MOP loader. A loader can be found at
.Lk ftp.stacken.kth.se:/pub/OS/NetBSD/mopd
Fetch the latest and read the
installation instructions.
.Pp
The file that should be loaded is called boot.mop and is located in
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/netboot/boot.mop
.Pp
The kernel to load is the same kernel as the bootfs uses and can
be found in
.Pp
.Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/netboot/netbsd.ram.gz
.Pp
From the install program started in the kernel the rest of the system
can be installed.
There is also a very good (if somewhat out of date) FAQ for netbooting
VAXen at
.Lk http://world.std.com/~bdc/projects/vaxen/VAX-netboot-HOWTO.html
that describes netbooting of VAXen from many different OS'es.