Installation is supported from several media types, including: Tape CD-ROM NFS FTP The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend on which method of installation you choose. The various methods are explained below. To prepare for installing via a tape: If you wish to load SYS_INST from tape, it must appear on the tape before any other files. To copy this onto tape, use a command like the following: dd if=SYS_INST of= obs=20b conv=osync Note that not all HP BOOTROMs support booting from SCSI tapes. Copying the miniroot to disk from tape is not currently supported. However, it is planned for a future release. If you wish to extract binary sets onto your disk from tape, you must first place them on the tape. The easiest way to do this is with the dd(1) command. Make sure you use a `no-rewind-on-close' tape device. For example: for file in base12.tar.gz etc12.tar.gz; do dd if=${file} of=/dev/nrst0 done Note that depending on your tape drive, you may need to explicitly set the EOF marker at the end of each file. It may also be necessary to use the `conv=osync' argument to dd(1). Note that this argument is incompatible with the `bs=' argument. Consult the tape-related manual pages on the system where the tapes are created for more details. To prepare for installing via NFS: SYS_INST currently requires an NFS server from which to copy the miniroot. * This filesystem must be exported with root permissions, but may be exported read-only. * The miniroot image _must_ reside in the `root' of the mounted filesystem. For example, if the client system mounts `server:/u', then the miniroot image must reside in /u on the server. This is due to limitations in the file lookup code used in SYS_INST, and may be fixed in a future release. * If you also wish to install the binary sets from the NFS server, place them in a properly exported filesystem on the server. Note that these files do not suffer from the same placement restrictions as the miniroot. To prepare for installing via FTP: It is possible, using the `install' and `upgrade' programs in the miniroot, to extract the binary sets directly onto disk from an FTP server. This is by far the easiest installation method, as you may specify to have all sets extracted at once, providing that they are located in the same directory on the server. All that is required in this case is that you have network access to an FTP server. This may be your account on another system, or may 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: Server path: /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.2/hp300/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.