xref: /netbsd-src/distrib/notes/alpha/xfer (revision 3fe138c1461e710931a50b66f08982c5f52c371f)
1Installation is supported from several media types, including:
2
3        FTP
4        Remote NFS partition
5        CD-ROM
6
7No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to have
8either a 1.44 MB floppy disk (if your Alpha has a floppy drive to
9boot from) or you'll have to set up a server with BOOTP, TFTP and
10NFS to boot from as described later in this document.
11
12If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to
13disks, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image
14(.fs file) directly to the raw floppy disk.  It is suggested that you
15read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to
16determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly
17different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the
18possibilities is beyond the scope of this document.
19
20If you are using DOS to write the floppy image to disk, you should
21use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "i386/utilities" directory
22of the NetBSD distribution.  It will write the file system image (.fs
23file) to disks.
24
25Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be
26write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their
27root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the
28floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be
29removed from the disk drive.
30
31Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets
32for installation depend on which installation medium you choose.
33The steps for the various media are outlined below.
34
35To install NetBSD using NFS to get the installation sets, you must
36do the following:
37
38        Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a
39        directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable
40        by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD.
41        This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on
42        of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd).
43        (Both of these actions will probably require superuser
44        privileges on the server.)
45
46        You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server,
47        and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to
48        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
49        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
50        to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know the numeric
51        IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The install
52        program will ask you to provide this information to be able
53        to access the sets.
54
55        Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the
56        information mentioned above, you can start the actual
57        installation process.
58
59To install NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you
60must do the following:
61
62        The preparations for this installation method are easy;
63        all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
64        you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about
65        to install. You need to know the numeric IP address of that
66        site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to
67        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
68        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router
69        closest to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know
70        the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The
71        install program will ask you to provide this information
72        to be able to access the sets via ftp.
73
74        Once you have this information, you can proceed to the actual
75        installation.
76
77To install NetBSD by using a CD-ROM to get the installation sets,
78you must do the following:
79
80        Have a CD-ROM with the installation sets on it, and a CD-ROM
81        drive on your machine.
82
83If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing
84NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing
85file system, and using them from there.  To do that, you must do the
86following:
87
88        Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in
89        your current file system tree. Please note that the /dev on
90        the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0,
91        sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than
92        three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets
93        on the high numbered drives.
94
95        At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" and "kern"
96        binary distribution, and so must put the "base" and
97        "kern" sets somewhere in your file system.  If you wish,
98        you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade
99        the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system
100        configuration files that you should review and update by hand.
101
102        Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in
103        the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.
104