NetBSD/distrib/notes/vax/xfer

.\" $NetBSD: xfer,v 1.6 2000/03/04 15:05:19 ragge Exp $	
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Installation is supported from several media types, including:
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Floppy
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FTP
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Tape
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NFS
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.(Note
Installing on a "bare" machine requires some bootable
device; either a tape or floppy drive or a NFS server together
with a machine that can act as a MOP loader, such as another
machine running NetBSD.
NetBSD/vax can use both BOOTP/DHCP and
BOOTPARAMS for netboot installations.
.Note)
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The procedure for transferring the distribution sets onto
installation media depends on the type of media. most of it is up to
you, depending what you want to install, but preferred are to do
the installation over network as soon as the install kernel is booted.
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.Ss2 Creating boot tapes
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Fetch the bootable bootfs image from
.Dl \&.../NetBSD-\*V/vax/installation/bootfs/boot.fs.gz
Gunzip boot.fs.gz and write it on the beginning of the tape.
Under NetBSD this is done (for MSCP tape, with SCSI tape the name is
nrst0) via:
.D1 Ic "gunzip boot.fs.gz
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewind
.D1 Ic "dd if=boot.fs of=/dev/nrmt0
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewoffl
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Under Ultrix the tape name is different:
.D1 Ic "gunzip boot.fs.gz
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewind
.D1 Ic "dd if=boot.fs of=/dev/rmt0h
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/rmt0h rewoffl
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Of course, if you have a tape unit other than unit 0 you have to use
the corresponding unit number.
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If you wish to install the sets from tape then stage you will need to
download the *.tgz files from 
.Dl \&.../NetBSD-\*V/vax/binary/sets Ns Ar {50,33}
(if your disk is less than 200MB you will probably want to exclude the
X sets) and then before the 'mt ... rewoffl' run
.D1 Ic "tar cvf /dev/nrmt0 *.tgz
When you have booted the bootfs and completed the disk partitioning
you will be prompted to 'select medium' for install. At this point
you will need to press ^Z (Ctrl+Z) to suspend the install tool, then
.D1 Ic "cd /mnt
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 rewind
.D1 Ic "mt -f /dev/nrmt0 fsf
.D1 Ic "tar xvf /dev/nrmt0
.D1 Ic "fg
then select "install from local dir" and give "/mnt".
Note: If your disk is small you will need to be careful about filling
it up.
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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.
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.Ss2 Creating boot floppies
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Fetch the bootable bootfs image from
.Dl \&.../NetBSD-\*V/vax/installation/bootfs/boot.fs.gz
and gunzip it. It is a 1MB bootable image that will boot from any
floppy of size 1MB and bigger.
Note that you
.Em cannot
install from RX50 floppies due to the small size. This may change
in the future.
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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 DOS
the preferred way to do this is using RAWRITE.EXE.
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.Ss2 Booting from NFS server
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All VAXen that can boot over network uses MOP, a 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:
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The VAX broadcast a wish to load an image.
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A mopd answers and send the boot program to the VAX.
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The boot program does rarp/bootp requests, mounts the root filesystem
and loads the kernel.
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The kernel is loaded and starts executing.
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If your machine has a disk and network connection, it may be
convenient for you to install NetBSD 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.
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If you are using a NetBSD 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. add_client(8) on SunOS.)
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There is also very useful documentation at
.Lk http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/
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You also must install a MOP loader. If you are booting from another
NetBSD 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.
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The file that should be loaded is called boot.mop and is located in
.Dl \&.../NetBSD-\*V/vax/installation/netboot/boot.mop
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The kernel to load is the same kernel as the bootfs uses and can 
be found in
.Dl \&.../NetBSD-\*V/vax/installation/netboot/netbsd.ram.gz
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.