NetBSD/distrib/notes/mvme68k/xfer

Installation is supported from several media types, including:

        * Tape
        * NFS
        * CD-ROM
        * FTP

Note that installing on a "bare" machine requires either a bootable
tape drive or an ethernet and RS232 connection to a compatible NFS server.

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.

In order to create installation media, you will need all the files in
these two directories:

        .../NetBSD-_VER/mvme68k/install
        .../NetBSD-_VER/mvme68k/binary


* Creating boot/install tapes:

Installing from tape is the simplest method of all. This method uses two
tapes, one containing a bootable ramdisk and miniroot, the other containing
the installation sets.

The boot tape is created as follows:

-->     cd .../NetBSD-_VER/mvme68k/install
-->     set T = /dev/nrst0
-->     mt -f $T rewind
-->     dd if=stboot of=$T
-->     dd if=bootst of=$T obs=8k conv=osync
-->     gzip -dc netbsd-rd.gz | dd of=$T obs=8k conv=osync
-->     gzip -dc miniroot.gz  | dd of=$T obs=8k conv=osync
-->     mt -f $T rewind

The installation set tape is created as follows:

-->     cd .../NetBSD-_VER/mvme68k/binary
-->     set T = /dev/nrst0
-->     mt -f $T rewind
-->     foreach f (base etc comp games man misc text)
-->       gzip -d < $f.tgz | dd of=$T bs=8k
-->     end
-->     mt -f $T rewind

If the tape does not work as expected, you may need to explicitly
set the EOF mark at the end of each tape segment. Consult the tape-
related manual pages on the system where the tapes are created for
more details.


* 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 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.

If you are using a NetBSD system as the boot-server, have a look at
the 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).

Booting a VME147 from ethernet is not possible without first downloading
a small bootstrap program (sboot) via RS232. See the section entitiled
"Installing from NFS" for details on how to accomplish this.

sboot expects to be able to download a second stage bootstrap
program via TFTP after having acquired its IP address through RARP
It will look for a filename derived from the machine's IP address
expressed in hexadecimal, with an extension of ".147". For example,
a VME147 with IP address 130.115.144.11 will make an TFTP request for
`8273900B.147'. Normally, this file is just a symbolic link to the
NetBSD/mvme68k "netboot" program, which should be located in a place
where the TFTP daemon can find it (remember, many TFTP daemons run in
a chroot'ed environment). The netboot program may be found in the
install directory of this distribution.

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 netbsd-rd kernel in
the root area for your client (no other files are needed in the client
root, although it might be a convenient place to put the uncompressed
miniroot image) and /etc/bootparams on the server should have an entry
for your client and its root directory. Note that you should rename the
netbsd-rd kernel to just 'netbsd' in the client's root directory before
trying to netboot the client.

The client will need access to the miniroot image, which can be
provided using NFS or remote shell. If using NFS, miniroot.gz should be
expanded on the server, because doing so from the RAMDISK shell is not
so easy. The unzipped miniroot takes about 6Mb of space.

If you will be installing NetBSD 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 netbsd-rd 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.


* 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 RAMDISK kernel) and loaded the
miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets directly from
the CD-ROM. The "install" program in the miniroot automates the
work required to mount the CD-ROM and extract the files.


* 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 .../install (which you get
via FTP). Once you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel)
and loaded the miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets
over the net using FTP. The "install" program in the miniroot
automates the work required to configure the network interface and
transfer the files.

This method, of course, requires network access to an FTP server.
This might be a local system, or it might even be ftp.NetBSD.ORG
itself. If you wish to use ftp.NetBSD.ORG as your FTP file
server, you may want to keep the following information handy:

        IP Address: ftp.NetBSD.ORG
        Login: anonymous
        Password: <your e-mail address>
        Server path: /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-_VER/mvme68k/binary

Note: if you're not using a nameserver duing installation,
you might find 206.86.8.12 handy; it's the IP address of
ftp.NetBSD.ORG as of September 2, 1996.