NetBSD/share/man/man8/man8.i386/installboot.8

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.\" $NetBSD: installboot.8,v 1.1 1997/03/14 02:40:32 perry Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1997 Perry E. Metzger. All rights reserved.
.\" Copyright (c) 1996, 1997 Christopher G. Demetriou. All rights reserved.
.\" Copyright (c) 1995 Paul Kranenburg. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
.\" This product includes software developed by Paul Kranenburg.
.\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
.\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission
.\"
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.\"
.Dd March 14, 1997
.Dt INSTALLBOOT 8 i386
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm installboot
.Nd install disk bootstrap software
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm installboot
.Op Fl nvf
.Ar bootfile
.Ar rawdiskdevice
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm installboot
utility prepares a disk for bootstrapping.
.Pp
The
.Nx /i386
disk bootstrap software is split into two parts:
a small first-stage boot program that is written into the disklabel
area of a disk and a second-stage boot program that resides in a FFS file
system on the disk (named
.Pa /boot ) .
Both parts of the boot are derived from a single object file
which is split by
.Nm
during the installation process.
The first-stage boot program is loaded into memory by the BIOS.
After receiving control of the system, it loads the
second-stage boot program from a set of filesystem block numbers that
have been hard-coded into it by
.Nm
during execution.
The second-stage boot program then locates and loads the kernel.
.Pp
Note: so that the
.Pa /boot
file can be installed on the bootable partition, the partition must be
mounted before
.Nm
is run.
.Pp
The options recognized by
.Nm installboot
are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width flag
.It Fl n
Do not actually write anything on the disk.
.It Fl v
Verbose mode.
.It Fl f
Force a write of the boot blocks (with the first stage put at offset
zero) even if no disk label is detected.
This is useful if there is no disk label (as is often the case with
floppy or vnode devices).
.El
.Pp
The arguments are:
.Bl -tag -width rawdiskdevice
.It Ar bootfile
The name of the special object file
(typically
.Pa /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym )
where the first and second stage boot programs to be installed reside.
.It Ar rawdiskdevice
The name of the device corresponding to the raw whole-disk partition (the
.Dq raw partition )
of the disk on which the first-stage boot program is to be installed.
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
Assuming the file containing the boot program is in its typical place,
and you wished to make
.Pa /dev/fd0a
bootable. One might first mount
.Pa /dev/fd0a
on
.Pa /mnt ,
and in the case that there is already a file named
.Pa boot
in that directory, remove it.
To install the boot blocks, one then would issue the command:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
installboot -f /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym /dev/rfd0a
.Ed
Note that the -f option is needed if the floppy is unlabeled -- see
.Xr disklabel 8 .
.Sh BUGS
The NetBSD/i386 boot blocks can only read from the first 1024
cylinders of the disk because they use the BIOS to do their I/O. Thus,
it is advisable that
.Dq a
partitions reside entirely within the first 1024 cylinders.
.Pp
.Nm
requires simultaneous access to the mounted file system and
the disks' raw partition.
That is not allowed with the kernel
.Dv securelevel
variable
.Po
see
.Xr sysctl 8
.Pc
set to a value greater than one, or with
.Dv securelevel
set to one if the
.Dq boot
program resides in a file system on the disk's raw partition.
.Sh "SEE ALSO"
.Xr boot 8 ,
.Xr disklabel 8 ,
.Xr init 8 ,
.Xr sysctl 8 ,
.Xr vnd 4
.Sh HISTORY
The NetBSD/i386
.Nm
command first appeared in
.Nx 1.3 .