=== Platform specifics for alpha +===================== Installing FreeBSD ==========================+ | | | Table of Contents: | | | | 0.0 Quick Start: | | 0.1 Installing FreeBSD from CDROM or the Internet. | | | | 1.0 Detail on various installation types: | | 1.1 Installing from a network CDROM | | 1.2 Installing from Floppies | | 1.3 Installing from QIC/SCSI tape | | 1.4 Installing over a network using NFS or FTP | | 1.4.1 NFS Installation tips | | 1.4.2 FTP Installation tips | | | +=====================================================================+ Author: Jordan K. Hubbard Last updated: Fri Mar 16 14:47:31 PST 2001 0.0 Quick Start --- ----------- This manual documents the process of making a new installation of FreeBSD on your machine. If you are upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, please see the file UPGRADE.TXT for important information on upgrading. If you are not familiar with configuring hardware for FreeBSD, you should also read the HARDWARE.TXT file - it contains important information which may save you a lot of grief. If you're new to FreeBSD then you should also read EVERYTHING listed in the Documentation menu on the boot floppy. It may seem like a lot to read, but the time you spend now reading the documents will be made up many times over because you were adequately prepared. Also, you will know the types of information available should you get stuck later. Once the system is installed, you can also revisit this menu and use a WEB browser to read the installed FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and Handbook HTML documentation sets for FreeBSD. You can also use the browser to visit other WEB sites on the net (like http://www.freebsd.org) if you have an Internet connection. See ABOUT.TXT for more information on the resources available to you. The best laid plans sometimes go awry, so if you run into trouble take a look at TROUBLE.TXT which contains valuable troubleshooting information. DISCLAIMER: While FreeBSD does its best to safeguard against accidental loss of data, it's still more than possible to WIPE OUT YOUR ENTIRE DISK with this installation! Please do not proceed to the final FreeBSD installation menu unless you've adequately backed up any important data first! We really mean it! FreeBSD/alpha supports the alpha platforms described in HARDWARE.TXT You will need a dedicated disk for FreeBSD/alpha. It is not possible to share a disk with another operating system at this time. This disk will need to be attached to a SCSI controller which is supported by the SRM firmware or an IDE disk assuming the SRM in your machine supports booting from IDE disks. Your root filesystem MUST be the first partition (partition a) on the disk to be bootable. You will need the SRM console firmware for your platform. In some cases, it is possible to switch between AlphaBIOS (or ARC) firmware and SRM. In others it will be necessary to download new firmware from the vendor's Website. 0.1 Installing FreeBSD from CDROM or the Internet --- --------------------------------------------- The easiest type of installation is from CD. If you have a supported CDROM drive and a FreeBSD installation CD from Walnut Creek CDROM, you can boot FreeBSD directly from the CDROM. Insert the CDROM into the drive and type the following command to start the installation: >>>boot dka0 (or whatever device your CDROM drive is) Alternatively you can boot the installation from floppy disk. You should start the installation by building a set of FreeBSD boot floppy from the files floppies/kern.flp and floppies/mfsroot.flp using the instructions found in floppies/README.TXT. From the SRM console prompt (>>>), just insert the kern.flp floppy and type the following command to start the installation: >>>boot dva0 Insert the mfsroot.flp floppy when prompted and you will end up at the first screen of the install program. If you don't have a CDROM and would like to simply install over the net using PPP, slip or a dedicated connection, simply fetch the /floppies/kern.flp and mfsroot.flp files from: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD or one of its many mirrors (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/mirrors.html) and follow step 3 above. You should also read the floppies/README.TXT file as it contains important information for downloaders. Once you have a boot floppy made, please go to section 1.4 of this document for additional tips on installing via FTP or NFS. 1.0 Detail on various installation types --- ------------------------------------ Once you've gotten yourself to the initial installation screen somehow, you should be able to follow the various menu prompts and go from there. If you've never used the FreeBSD installation before, you are also encouraged to read some of the documentation in the the Documentation submenu as well as the general "Usage" instructions on the first menu. REMEMBER: If you get stuck at a screen, hit F1 for the online documentation for that section. If you've never installed FreeBSD before, or even if you have, the "Standard" installation mode is the most recommended since it makes sure that you'll visit all the various important checklist items along the way. If you're much more comfortable with the FreeBSD installation process and know _exactly_ what you want to do, use the Express or Custom installation options. If you're upgrading an existing system, use the Upgrade option. The FreeBSD installer supports the direct use of floppy, DOS, tape, CDROM, FTP, NFS and UFS partitions as installation media, further tips on installing from each type of media listed below. Once the install procedure has finished, you will be able to start FreeBSD/alpha by typing something like this to the SRM prompt: >>>boot dkc0 This instructs the firmware to boot the specified disk. To find the SRM names of disks in your machine, use the show device command: >>>show device dka0.0.0.4.0 DKA0 TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-57 3476 dkc0.0.0.1009.0 DKC0 RZ1BB-BS 0658 dkc100.1.0.1009.0 DKC100 SEAGATE ST34501W 0015 dva0.0.0.0.1 DVA0 ewa0.0.0.3.0 EWA0 00-00-F8-75-6D-01 pkc0.7.0.1009.0 PKC0 SCSI Bus ID 7 5.27 pqa0.0.0.4.0 PQA0 PCI EIDE pqb0.0.1.4.0 PQB0 PCI EIDE This example is from a Digital Personal Workstation 433au and shows three disks attached to the machine. The first is a CDROM called dka0 and the other two are disks and are called dkc0 and dkc100 repectively. You can specify which kernel file to load and what boot options to use with the -file and -flags options to boot, e.g.: >>>boot -file kernel.old -flags s To make FreeBSD/alpha boot automatically, use these commands: >>>set boot_osflags a >>>set bootdef_dev dkc0 >>>set auto_action BOOT 1.1 Installing from a network CDROM --- ------------------------------- If you simply wish to install from a local CDROM drive then see the Quick Start section. If you don't have a CDROM drive on your system and wish to use a FreeBSD distribution CD in the CDROM drive of another system to which you have network connectivity, there are several ways of going about it: 1. If you would be able to FTP install FreeBSD directly from the CDROM drive in some FreeBSD machine, it's quite easy: You simply add the following line to the password file (using the vipw command): ftp:*:99:99::0:0:FTP:/cdrom:/sbin/nologin Warning: This may allow anyone on the local network (or Internet) to make "anonymous FTP" connections to this machine, which may not be desirable. On the machine on which you are running the install, go to the "Options" menu and set "Release Name" to "any". You may then choose a Media type of FTP and type in: ``ftp://'' after picking "URL" in the ftp sites menu. 2. If you would rather use NFS to export the CDROM directly to the machine(s) you'll be installing from, you need to first add an entry to the /etc/exports file (on the machine with the CDROM drive) which looks something like this: /cdrom -ro ziggy.foo.com To allow the machine "ziggy.foo.com" to mount the CDROM directly via NFS during installation. The machine with the CDROM must also be configured as an NFS server, of course, and if you're not sure how to do that then an NFS installation is probably not the best choice for you unless you're willing to read up on rc.conf(5) and configure things appropriately. Assuming that this part goes smoothly, you should be able to enter: :/cdrom as the path for an NFS installation when the target machine is installed. 1.2 Installing from Floppies --- ------------------------ If you must install from floppy disks, either due to unsupported hardware or just because you enjoy doing things the hard way, you must first prepare some floppies for the install. First, make a set of boot floppies as described in floppies/README.TXT. Second, read the file LAYOUT.TXT and pay special attention to the "Distribution format" section since it describes which files you're going to need to put onto floppy and which you can safely skip. Next you will need, at minimum, as many 1.44MB floppies as it takes to hold all files in the bin (binary distribution) directory. If you're preparing these floppies under DOS, then THESE floppies *must* be formatted using the MS-DOS FORMAT command. If you're using Windows, use the Windows File Manager format command. Don't trust Factory Preformatted floppies! Format them again yourself, just to make sure. Many problems reported by our users in the past have resulted from the use of improperly formatted media, which is why I'm taking such special care to mention it here! If you're creating the floppies from another FreeBSD machine, a format is still not a bad idea though you don't need to put a DOS filesystem on each floppy. You can use the `disklabel' and `newfs' commands to put a UFS filesystem on a floppy, as the following sequence of commands illustrates: fdformat -f 1440 fd0.1440 disklabel -w -r fd0.1440 floppy3 newfs -t 2 -u 18 -l 1 -i 65536 /dev/fd0 After you've formatted the floppies for DOS or UFS, you'll need to copy the files onto them. The distribution files are split into chunks conveniently sized so that 5 of them will fit on a conventional 1.44MB floppy. Go through all your floppies, packing as many files as will fit on each one, until you've got all the distributions you want packed up in this fashion. Each distribution should go into its own subdirectory on the floppy, e.g.: a:\bin\bin.inf, a:\bin\bin.aa, a:\bin\bin.ab, ... IMPORTANT NOTE: The bin.inf file also needs to go on the first floppy of the bin set since it is read by the installation program in order to figure out how many additional pieces to look for when fetching and concatenating the distribution. When putting distributions onto floppies, the .inf file MUST occupy the first floppy of each distribution set! Once you come to the Media screen of the install, select "Floppy" and you'll be prompted for the rest. 1.3 Installing from QIC/SCSI Tape --- ----------------------------- When installing from tape, the installation program expects the files to be simply tar'ed onto it, so after fetching all of the files for the distributions you're interested in, simply tar them onto the tape with a command something like this: cd /where/you/have/your/dists tar cvf /dev/rwt0 (or /dev/rsa0) dist1 .. dist2 When you go to do the installation, you should also make sure that you leave enough room in some temporary directory (which you'll be allowed to choose) to accommodate the FULL contents of the tape you've created. Due to the non-random access nature of tapes, this method of installation requires quite a bit of temporary storage! You should expect to require as much temporary storage as you have stuff written on tape. SPECIAL NOTE: When going to do the installation, the tape must be in the drive *before* booting from the boot floppy. The installation "probe" may otherwise fail to find it. Now create a boot floppy as described in section 0.1 and proceed with the installation. 1.4 Installing over a network using FTP or NFS --- ------------------------------------------ After making a boot floppy as described in the first section, you can load the rest of the installation over a network using one of 3 types of connections: Serial port: SLIP / PPP Parallel port: PLIP (using ``laplink'' style cable) Ethernet: A standard Ethernet controller (including certain PCCARD devices). Serial Port ----------- SLIP support is rather primitive, and is limited primarily to hard-wired links, such as a serial cable running between two computers. The link must be hard-wired because the SLIP installation doesn't currently offer a dialing capability. If you need to dial out with a modem or otherwise dialog with the link before connecting to it, then I recommend that the PPP utility be used instead. If you're using PPP, make sure that you have your Internet Service Provider's IP address and DNS information handy as you'll need to know it fairly early in the installation process. You may also need to know your own IP address, though PPP supports dynamic address negotiation and may be able to pick up this information directly from your ISP if they support it. You will also need to know how to use the various "AT commands" for dialing out with your particular brand of modem as the PPP dialer provides only a very simple terminal emulator. Parallel Port ------------- If a hard-wired connection to another FreeBSD or Linux machine is available, you might also consider installing over a "laplink" style parallel port cable. The data rate over the parallel port is much higher than what is typically possible over a serial line (up to 50k/sec), thus resulting in a quicker installation. It's not typically necessary to use "real" IP addresses when using a point-to-point parallel cable in this way and you can generally just use RFC 1918 style addresses for the ends of the link (e.g. 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, etc). IMPORTANT NOTE: If you use a Linux machine rather than a FreeBSD machine as your PLIP peer, you will also have to specify "link0" in the TCP/IP setup screen's ``extra options for ifconfig'' field. Ethernet -------- FreeBSD supports most common Ethernet cards, a table of supported cards (and their required settings) being provided as part of the FreeBSD Hardware Guide (see the Documentation menu on the boot floppy or the top level directory of the CDROM). If you are using one of the supported PCMCIA Ethernet cards, also be sure that it's plugged in BEFORE the laptop is powered on! FreeBSD does not, unfortunately, currently support "hot insertion" of PCMCIA cards during installation. You will also need to know your IP address on the network, the "netmask" value for your address class and the name of your machine. Your system administrator can tell you which values are appropriate to your particular network setup. If you will be referring to other hosts by name rather than IP address, you'll also need a name server and possibly the address of a gateway (if you're using PPP, it's your provider's IP address) to use in talking to it. If you do not know the answers to these questions then you should really probably talk to your system administrator _first_ before trying this type of installation! Using a randomly chosen IP address or netmask on a live network will almost certainly get you shot at dawn. Once you have a network connection of some sort working, the installation can continue over NFS or FTP. 1.4.1 NFS installation tips ----- --------------------- NFS installation is fairly straight-forward: Simply copy the FreeBSD distribution files you want onto a server somewhere and then point the NFS media selection at it. If this server supports only "privileged port" access (as is generally the default for Sun and Linux workstations), you will need to set this option in the Options menu before installation can proceed. If you have a poor quality Ethernet card which suffers from very slow transfer rates, you may also wish to toggle the appropriate Options flag. In order for NFS installation to work, the server must also support "subdir mounts", e.g. if your FreeBSD 2.2 distribution directory lives on: ziggy:/usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD Then ziggy will have to allow the direct mounting of /usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD, not just /usr or /usr/archive/stuff. In FreeBSD's /etc/exports file this is controlled by the ``-alldirs'' option. Other NFS servers may have different conventions. If you are getting `Permission Denied' messages from the server then it's likely that you don't have this properly enabled! 1.4.2 FTP Installation tips ----- --------------------- FTP installation may be done from any mirror site containing a reasonably up-to-date version of FreeBSD. A full menu of reasonable choices for almost any location in the world is provided in the FTP site menu during installation. If you are installing from some other FTP site not listed in this menu, or you are having troubles getting your name server configured properly, you can also specify your own URL by selecting the ``URL'' choice in that menu. A URL can contain a hostname or an IP address, so the following would work in the absence of a name server: ftp://192.216.191.11/pub/FreeBSD There are three FTP installation modes you can use: o FTP: This method uses the standard "Active" mode for file transfers which allows the server to initiate a connection to the client. This will not work through most firewalls but will often work best with older FTP servers that do not support passive mode. If your connection hangs with passive mode, try this one! o FTP Passive: This sets the FTP "Passive" mode which prevents the server from opening connections to the client. This option is best for users to pass through firewalls that do not allow incoming connections on random port addresses. o FTP via an HTTP proxy: This option instructs FreeBSD to use HTTP to connect to a proxy for all FTP operations. The proxy will translate the requests and send them to the FTP server. This allows the user to pass through firewalls that do not allow FTP at all, but offer an HTTP proxy. You must specify the hostname of the proxy in addition to the FTP server. In the rare case that you have an FTP proxy that does not go through HTTP, you can specify the URL as something like : ftp://foo.bar.com:1234/pub/FreeBSD Where "1234" is the port number of the proxy ftp server. ---- End of Installation Guide ---