xref: /netbsd-src/distrib/notes/sun3/install (revision 2a399c6883d870daece976daec6ffa7bb7f934ce)
1Installing NetBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have
2this document in hand it should not be too difficult.
3
4There are several ways to install NetBSD onto your disk.  If your
5machine has a tape drive the easiest way is "Installing from tape"
6(details below).  If your machine is on a network with a suitable
7NFS server, then "Installing from NFS" is the next best method.
8Otherwise, if you have another Sun machine running SunOS you can
9initialize the disk on that machine and then move the disk.
10(Installing from SunOS is not recommended.)
11
12
13* Installing from tape:
14
15Create the NetBSD/sun3 _VER boot tape as described in the section
16entitled "Preparing a boot tape" and boot the tape.  At the PROM
17monitor prompt, use one of the commands:
18	>b st()
19	>b st(0,8,0)
20The first example will use the tape on SCSI target 4, where the
21second will use SCSI target 5.  The '>' is the monitor prompt.
22
23After the tape loads, you should see many lines of configuration
24messages, and then the following "welcome" screen:
25
26	Welcome to the NetBSD/sun3 RAMDISK root!
27
28This environment is designed to do only three things:
291:  Partititon your disk (use the command:  edlabel /dev/rsd0c)
302:  Copy a miniroot image into the swap partition  (/dev/rsd0b)
313:  Reboot (using the swap partition, i.e. /dev/sd?b).
32
33Copying the miniroot can be done several ways, allowing
34the source of the miniroot image to be on any of these:
35    boot tape,  NFS server, TFTP server, rsh server
36
37The easiest is loading from tape, which is done as follows:
38	mt -f /dev/nrst0 rewind
39	mt -f /dev/nrst0 fsf 2
40	dd bs=32k if=/dev/nrst0 of=/dev/rsd0b
41(For help with other methods, please see the install notes.)
42
43To reboot using the swap partition, first use "halt",
44then at the PROM monitor prompt use a command like:
45	b sd(,,1) -s
46
47To view this message again, type:  cat /.welcome
48
49[ End of "welcome" screen. ]
50
51Copy the miniroot as described in the welcome message, and
52reboot from that just installed miniroot.  See the section
53entitled "Booting the miniroot" for details.
54
55
56* Installing from NFS:
57
58Before you can install from NFS, you must have already configured
59your NFS server to support your machine as a diskless client.
60Instructions for configuring the server are found in the section
61entitled "Getting the NetBSD System onto Useful Media" above.
62
63First, at the Sun PROM monitor prompt, enter a boot command
64using the network interface as the boot device.  On desktop
65machines this is "le", and "ie" on the others.  Examples:
66
67	>b le() -s
68	>b ie() -s
69
70After the boot program loads the RAMDISK kernel, you should
71see the welcome screen as shown in the "tape boot" section
72above.  You must configure the network interface before you
73can use any network resources.  For example the command:
74
75	ssh> ifconfig le0 inet 192.233.20.198 up
76
77will bring up the network interface with that address.  The next
78step is to copy the miniroot from your server.  This can be done
79using either NFS or remote shell.  (In the examples that follow,
80the server has IP address 192.233.20.195)  You may then need to
81add a default route if the server is on a different subnet:
82
83	ssh> route add default 192.233.20.255  1
84
85You can look at the route table using:
86
87	ssh> route show
88
89Now mount the NFS filesystem containing the miniroot image:
90
91	ssh> mount -r 192.233.20.195:/server/path /mnt
92
93The procedure is simpler if you have space for an expanded
94(not compressed) copy of the miniroot image.  In that case:
95
96	ssh> dd if=/mnt/miniroot of=/dev/rsd0b bs=8k
97
98Otherwise, you will need to use "zcat" to expand the miniroot
99image while copying.  This is tricky because the "ssh" program
100(small shell) does not handle sh(1) pipeline syntax.  Instead,
101you first run the reader in the background with its input set
102to /dev/pipe and then run the other program in the foreground
103with its output to /dev/pipe.  The result looks like this:
104
105	ssh> run -bg dd if=/dev/pipe of=/dev/rsd0b obs=8k
106	ssh> run -o /dev/pipe zcat /mnt/install/miniroot.gz
107
108To load the miniroot using rsh to the server, you would use a
109pair of commands similar to the above.  Here is another example:
110
111	ssh> run -b dd if=/dev/pipe of=/dev/rsd0b obs=8k
112	ssh> run -o /dev/pipe rsh 192.233.20.195 zcat miniroot.gz
113
114
115* Booting the miniroot:
116
117If the miniroot was installed on partition 'b' of the disk with
118SCSI target ID=0 then the PROM boot command would be:
119	>b sd(0,0,1) -s
120With SCSI target ID=2, the the PROM is:
121	>b sd(0,10,1) -s
122
123The numbers in parentheses above are:
124	controller (usually zero)
125	unit number (SCSI ID * 8, in hexadecimal)
126	partition number
127
128Miniroot install program:
129------------------------
130
131The miniroot's install program is very simple to use.  It will guide
132you through the entire process, and is well automated.  Additional
133improvements are planned for future releases.
134
135The miniroot's install program will:
136
137	* Allow you to place disklabels on additional disks.
138	  The disk we are installing on should already have
139	  been partitioned using the RAMDISK kernel.
140
141	* Create filesystems on target partitions.
142
143	* Allow you to set up your system's network configuration.
144	  Remember to specify host names without the domain name
145	  appended to the end.  For example use `foo' instead of
146	  `foo.bar.org'.  If, during the process of configuring
147	  the network interfaces, you make a mistake, you will
148	  be able to re-configure that interface by simply selecting
149	  it for configuration again.
150
151	* Mount target filesystems.  You will be given the opportunity
152	  to manually edit the resulting /etc/fstab.
153
154	* Extract binary sets from the media of your choice.
155
156	* Copy configuration information gathered during the
157	  installation process to your root filesystem.
158
159	* Make device nodes in your root filesystem.
160
161	* Copy a new kernel onto your root partition.
162
163	* Install a new boot block.
164
165	* Check your filesystems for integrity.
166
167First-time installation on a system through a method other than the
168installation program is possible, but strongly discouraged.
169