Installation is supported from several media types, including: DOS floppies Tape Remote NFS partition FTP No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have a floppy disk (either 1.2M or 1.44M will work). You'll put the boot floppy image ("boot.fs" for 1.44M floppies, "boot-small.fs" for 1.2M floppies) onto this disk, which contains software to install or upgrade your NetBSD system. [Note: previous versions of NetBSD used several floppy images, including several kernel/boot floppies depending on hardware configuration, an install floppy, and an upgrade floppy. NetBSD _VER only requires a single floppy for all tasks.] If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image (.fs file) directly to the raw floppy disk. It is suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. If you are using DOS to write the floppy image to disk, you should use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "i386/utilities" directory of the NetBSD distribution. It will write the file system image (.fs file) to disks. Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be removed from the disk drive. Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation or upgrade depend on which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below. To install or upgrade NetBSD using DOS floppies, you need to do the following: Count the number of "set_name.xx" files that make up the distribution sets you want to install or upgrade. You will need one fifth that number of 1.2M floppies, or one sixth that number of 1.44M floppies. You should only use one size of floppy for the install or upgrade procedure; you can't use some 1.2M floppies and some 1.44M floppies. Format all of the floppies with DOS. DO NOT make any of them bootable DOS floppies, i.e. don't use "format/s" to format them. (If the floppies are bootable, then the DOS system files that make them bootable will take up some space, and you won't be able to fit as many distribution set parts per disk.) If you're using floppies that are formatted for DOS by their manufacturers, they probably aren't bootable, and you can use them out of the box. Place all of the "set_name.xx" files on the DOS disks, five per disk if you're using 1.2M disks, six per disk if you're using 1.44M disks. How you do this is up to you; there are many possibilities. You could, for instance, use a DOS terminal program to download them on to the floppies, or use a UN*X-like system capable of reading and writing DOS file systems (either with "mtools" or a real DOS file system) to place them on the disk. Once you have the files on DOS disks, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade NetBSD using a tape, you need to do the following: To install NetBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, in "tar" format. If you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way to do so is probably something like: tar cf where "" is the name of the tape device that describes the tape drive you're using (possibly /dev/rst0, or something similar, but it will vary from system to system. (If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.) In the above example, "" are the distribution sets' directories, for the distribution sets you wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the "kern", "base" and "etc" distributions on tape (in order to do the absolute minimum installation to a new disk), you would do the following: cd .../NetBSD-_VER # the top of the tree cd i386/binary tar cf base etc kern (Note that you still need to fill in "" in the example.) Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade NetBSD using a remote partition, mounted via NFS, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.) You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install or upgrade NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. 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 NetBSD 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 NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. Once you have this information, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following: Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0, sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets on the high numbered drives. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern" binary distribution, and so must put the "base" and "kern" sets somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.