1 .\" $NetBSD: xfer,v 1.10 2002/06/30 13:01:50 lukem Exp $
3 Installation is supported from several media types, including:
4 .(bullet -compact -offset indent
16 machine requires some bootable device; either a tape drive or
17 .Tn Sun Ns No -compatible
21 The procedure for transferring the distribution sets onto
22 installation media depends on the type of media.
23 Instructions for each type of media are given below.
25 In order to create installation media, you will need all the
26 files in the directory
28 .Dl Pa \&.../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/
30 .Ss2 Creating boot/install tapes
32 Installing from tape is the simplest method of all.
33 This method uses two tapes; one called the
35 tape, and another called the
38 The boot tape is created as follows:
40 .Dl # Ic "cd .../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/tapeimage"
41 .Dl # Ic "sh MakeBootTape /dev/nrst0"
43 The install tape is created as follows:
45 .Dl # Ic "cd .../NetBSD-\*V/\*M/installation/tapeimage"
46 .Dl # Ic "sh MakeInstallTape /dev/nrst0"
48 If the tapes do not work as expected, you may need to explicitly
49 set the EOF mark at the end of each tape segment.
50 It may also be necessary to use the
55 this argument is incompatible with the
58 Consult the tape-related manual pages on the system where the tapes are
59 created for more details.
61 .Ss2 Boot/Install from NFS server
63 If your machine has a disk and network connection, but no tape drive,
64 it may be convenient for you to install
67 This involves temporarily booting your machine over NFS, just long enough
68 so you can initialize its disk.
69 This method requires that you have access to an NFS server on your
70 network so you can configure it to support diskless boot for your machine.
71 Configuring the NFS server is normally a task for a system administrator,
76 system as the boot-server, have a look at
79 manual page for guidelines on how to proceed with this.
80 If the server runs another operating system, consult the
81 documentation that came with it (i.e.
86 When instructed to boot over the network, your \*M expects to be
87 able to download a second stage bootstrap program via
90 it has acquired its IP address through
92 It will attempt to download a file using a name derived from the
93 machine's recently acquired IP address,
94 and in the case of sun3x machines, an extension which corresponds to the
96 (It may be handy to have a hexadecimal
97 calculator for this next step.)
98 The filename is created by
99 converting the machine's assigned IP address into hexadecimal,
100 most-significant octet first, using uppercase characters for the
101 non-decimal (A-F) digits.
102 sun3x machines use a filename suffix of
105 For example, a sun3 which has been assigned IP address 130.115.144.11
113 is a symbolic link to the
116 program, which should
117 be located in a place where the
120 (Remember, many TFTP daemons run in a chroot'ed environment.)
121 The netboot program may be found in the install directory of this distribution.
123 The netboot program will query a bootparamd server to find the
124 NFS server address and path name for its root, and then load a
125 kernel from that location.
126 The server should have a copy of the netbsd-rd kernel in the root area
127 for your client (no other files are needed in the client root) and
130 should have an entry for your client and its root directory.
131 The client will need access to the miniroot image, which can be
132 provided using NFS or remote shell.
134 If you will be installing
136 on several clients, it may be useful
137 to know that you can use a single NFS root for all the clients as long
138 as they only use the netbsd-rd kernel.
139 There will be no conflict between clients because the RAM-disk kernel will
140 not use the NFS root.
141 No swap file is needed; the RAM-disk kernel does not use that either.
143 .Ss2 Install/Upgrade from CD-ROM
145 This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
146 or network, as described above). You may need to make a boot tape
147 on another machine using the files provided on the CD-ROM.
148 Once you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel) and loaded the
149 miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets directly from
153 program in the miniroot automates the
154 work required to mount the CD-ROM and extract the files.
156 .Ss2 Install/Upgrade via FTP
158 This method requires that you boot from another device (i.e. tape
159 or network, as described above).
160 You may need to make a boot tape on another machine using the files in
162 (which you get via FTP).
163 Once you have booted netbsd-rd (the RAM-disk kernel)
164 and loaded the miniroot, you can load any of the distribution sets
165 over the net using FTP.
168 program in the miniroot
169 automates the work required to configure the network interface and
172 The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are easy; all
173 you make sure that there's some FTP site from which you can retrieve
176 distribution when you're about to install or upgrade.
177 You need to know the numeric IP address of that site, and, if it's not on
178 a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing
181 you need to know the numeric IP address of the
182 router closest to the
185 Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the